


Forever With You

by boleynhowards



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: Caffeine Addiction, College AU, F/F, Panic Attack, implied abuse (not shown)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 42,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27548887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boleynhowards/pseuds/boleynhowards
Summary: Cathy Parr is a model student at her college, who seems leagues ahead of her classmates in just about everything. But there’s one puzzle she can’t figure out, no matter how hard she tries: who is she, really? And where does she belong?Enter Anne Boleyn; the mysterious girl from the opposite side of the tracks, and maybe, just maybe, the person who has the answers to all of Cathy’s questions.
Relationships: Anne Boleyn/Catherine Parr, aramour and katanna but very background
Comments: 21
Kudos: 116





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> hello! just a quick preface. first, huge thanks to @theothercatherine (tumblr and ao3) for beta reading this for me and giving me the motivation to keep it going.
> 
> i hope you enjoy!

Catherine Parr awoke to the sound of her alarm piercing through the tranquil silence of her room and, despite having just been jolted out of sleep, she was quick to react. Shoving her hand under her pillow and feeling around until she found her phone, Cathy pulled it out from under there and instantly hit the stop button. As always, she was relieved when the shrill noise of the alarm had stopped attacking her ears, and she carelessly dropped her phone onto her chest whilst she rubbed at her eyes to get rid of the exhaustion that tempted them to droop closed, eventually forcing herself to sit up in bed and wake up properly.

Outside, through the gap where her blind hadn’t quite met the windowsill, Cathy could make out that it was still relatively dark out, the sky the colour of cobalt. Waking up before sunrise was always a challenge and, if given the choice, she would have dove straight back into the warmth of her bed and slept for another few hours, but she knew she couldn’t. She had college today; an eight am class, to be specific.

Cathy was easily her college’s most model student. Actually, considering that the town she lived in was so small, it was quite likely that she was the most model student in her area. At the very least, she had to be in the top five - and that included the local secondary school, too. Everything an educating body looked for in a student came in a packaged deal with Cathy; consistently good grades, perfect punctuality and impeccable attendance all badges of honour that she was very excited to put on her university application.

Her teachers made it no secret that she was an exemplary student, either. If any of her classmates had an enquiry, they were often sent Cathy’s way - and that was if they hadn’t already gone straight to her. Yes, a reputation really did precede Cathy. This was, and always had been, much to her own surprise. She never let it get to her head; rather, she was confused as to how people viewed her so highly. Sure, she had good grades, but, in her own eyes, she really was a nervous, slightly antisocial mess.

However, regardless of Cathy’s own views of herself, people were still in awe of her academic success, and she often found herself receiving messages or being approached by people, some of whom she didn’t even know the names of, asking for some sort of help or advice. One of the most common questions Cathy got was simple: how does she do it? People just didn’t understand how she could comprehend so much. How she seemed so effortless in her studies, or how she made getting straight As look like a walk in the park.

According to what Cathy’s mother had told her, Cathy had simply been born with a passion for knowledge. Supposedly, though Cathy did expect that some exaggeration had come into play, she was picking up books at three, reading them at four, and onto the ones without pictures by five. Even if it might not have been  _ that  _ early, it was true that Cathy was a premature reader and writer. She remembered that much, at least.

Still, Cathy knew that just telling someone that it’s in her genetics was not a good idea. Instead, she constantly recommended hard work, suggested putting in maximum effort and promised that the results would reflect that. She wasn’t lying, either; she didn’t solely rely on her natural smarts to float through life - she knew hard work was just as important. But the natural genetically gifted advantage was there all the same.

There was a third part of her formula for success as well, but Cathy never shared it with anyone. She knew it was likely personal to her own tastes, and people would probably find her crazy. Plus, she just didn’t want to promote unhealthy habits, so she kept quiet about the third little factor of her academic excellence. Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.

At this rate, Cathy was unsure that she could even go a day without coffee, but she was leaning more towards the assumption of no. Not that she was going to try and test that out, though. It was her fuel for the day; keeping her energised, alert and focused, ready for anything. Without it, she would probably end up falling asleep at her desk, pen still in hand, sleepily doodling all over her lesson notes, and that was the last thing she needed. If she slipped up just once, the whole workload that she was balancing with the uttermost care would all tumble, and then her life would become chaos. The coffee made sure that didn’t happen; kept her relaxed enough to flow through her revision, awake long enough to make sure everything was done by the deadlines.

Pushing the quilt off of herself, Cathy swung her legs over the edge of the bed and begrudgingly got to her feet. She stretched as she did so, posture relaxing slightly as she felt the tension of last night’s sleep crackle away inside of her until it was gone. Before getting dressed, she opened up the weather app on her phone and checked the forecast. Cloudy, a slightly chilling breeze, but nothing too extreme. That was pretty much her town summarised in the form of weather; ordinary, dull, average. Nothing stood out.

She chose her outfit according to the weather; a simple sweater and jeans, always being the type who went for comfortability over style. It was quick for her to get ready, because there wasn’t much for her to do in the morning. Seeing as she prepared her bag the night before, all she had to do was throw some bread into the toaster, make herself a cup of steaming coffee and tame her curls as neatly as she could above her head. When there had been enough time to allow her food to go down, she headed to the bathroom to brush her teeth, and when that was also done, she slung her bag over her shoulders and shrugged her college lanyard around her neck before stepping out.

Just as the forecast had predicted, grey, dullish clouds hung lazily in the sky, that had lightened to a gelly white colour whilst Cathy was getting ready. The breeze stung at her hands and face, a hidden iciness in the wind stabbing at her uncovered skin, but it was tolerable enough to ignore. Making sure her front door was locked behind her, she pocketed her keys and made it into a walk out of her front yard and on to her usual route to college.

Walking through her town was no different to how it was every other time. The same dog walkers who started their days early gave her their usual nods and smiles as they passed each other, she had to skim past the same groups of secondary school kids clotting the pavement with their slow walking and the same few cyclists on their way to work, school and college whizzed past her and around the impending corners in a blur.

When she was almost at her college, Cathy made her usual small detour off of the path and into a small square of roadside stores. It was here that she made her way into one of the convenience stores, approached the counter and requested her usual order; a coffee, fresh from one of the machines at the back.

It was true that she had already had a cup that day, but that cup was long gone, sitting by her sink at home, cold dregs sticking to the bottom and waiting for her to come back and wash it up after her classes. She needed a second cup to keep with her during her morning classes, ready to take small sips from whilst she took her notes, a prepared remedy for every time she found her eyes starting to get heavy with exhaustion. Two coffees in the span of under an hour surely couldn’t hurt, anyway. It wasn’t that Cathy had done her research on this, but she had had this same routine for years. If something was going to go wrong, it would have done so already by now.

Being the only one in the shop this early in the morning, it wasn’t long at all for the coffee machine to spurt her drink out and, after fastening on a takeaway lid to the cardboard cup, the employee was handing it back to her with a tired thank you for her business. She nodded, tapping her debit card against the contactless reader and then was back on her way, not taking a sip yet in favour of not burning her tongue, even though the smell that wafted up with the steam from the cup was tempting.

There wasn’t much of her walk left from where she left the store and, within a few minutes, her college campus was in view. Not many people had arrived at the college yet considering the time, but there were a few people who were sitting around the place, and a small cluster of cars parked in both the staff and student car parks. Walking through the entrance gates, Cathy made her way to one of the many A-Level buildings on campus, the one where her sociology classroom was.

She swiped her lanyard for access at the way in, and a few seconds passed before the glass entry doors slid open and allowed her inside. Soon enough, after a bit of walking and two flights of stairs, Cathy was at her sociology classroom, and she gently pushed the door open.

As usual, she was the first one there. This was never anything she intended, but she didn’t mind it at all. It gave her time to fully prepare and relax a little bit before her class started. She took the seat in the back corner by the window as she always did, putting her coffee cup on her desk and then shovelling through her bag for her pens, notepad and textbooks that the class required, placing them readily in front of her. Once that was done, she fished her phone charger out from between the folders and papers that remained in her bag and pushed it into the nearest power outlet before flicking it on.

Still, no one had entered the classroom, and there was nothing much else for her to do. Tentatively, she rested two fingers against her coffee cup, only to cringe them away within seconds when it was still much too hot to drink just yet. Though she wasn’t overly disappointed (she really hadn’t been expecting it to be drinkable just yet), she still sighed to herself and ended up resting her scorched fingers against the cold surface of her desk, seeing as it was the closest thing she could get to icing them without leaving the classroom.

With nothing else to do other than wait for someone else to enter or for her coffee to cool down, Cathy eventually leant back on her chair and found herself staring out of the window. There still wasn’t anything that interesting to watch; only the trees waving about in the wind and the occasional car or student to enter through the front gates she had just a few minutes prior. Condensation against the windows blocked her view massively, but the thick misty build up began to be dotted with drops of rain that washed it away, and Cathy silently thanked her luck for getting into the building before the downpour started.

Comically, the students she was watching who were sitting around outside on the campus below all seemed to scramble to their feet at once as soon as the rain started. Cathy chuckled softly to herself as she watched them pull their hoods up, and playfully rolled her eyes at the ones who used their bags as makeshift umbrellas until they got inside.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you without a cup of coffee before.”

Startling, Cathy jolted her head away from facing the direction of the window and looked straight forward to see who had suddenly spoken to her. She hadn’t even heard them come into the room. Standing in front of her desk, leaning against the wall, was none other than Anne Boleyn.

Anne shared two out of three classes with Cathy; this one and English literature, so she spent a lot of time in her presence. Despite this, Cathy still didn’t know quite what to make of the girl, torn between respect and resent.

One of the things that became apparent within minutes of Cathy sitting in her first class with Anne was that she was extremely talkative. Anne was full of opinions and ideas, and she did not hold these back. This was something that Cathy liked about her. When Anne was present in the classroom, the class discussions were always enriched with her beliefs, opinions and interpretations of whatever they were studying that day. Of course, Cathy didn’t agree with every single thing she said, but Anne’s comments still opened up windows of thinking that she hadn’t previously considered, and she was grateful to be able to add the ideas that sprung from those to her class notes.

However, sometimes Anne’s loud mouth and chatty nature was too much of a good thing. Oftentimes, class topics got derailed because Anne had, whether accidentally or purposefully, enticed the teacher with conversation enough to get the whole lesson off track. During these moments, Cathy was always found impatiently tapping her pen against her leg, waiting for the teacher to silence Anne and actually get on with what they were supposed to be doing.

There were also some rumours that followed Anne around. Cathy hadn’t personally sought these out, but she couldn’t help but overhear when her other classmates whispered about the girl’s body count, or speculated theories between themselves about what really happened in the last year of secondary school. Although she prided herself on being immune to gossip, it would have been a lie for Cathy to say she wasn’t a little curious about the latter one too.

Cathy didn’t go to the same secondary school as Anne, but she had still heard the story, and it was like something straight out of a thriller novel. Apparently, in Year 11, Anne was suddenly missing from school in the final few months of the academic year. She missed the entire examination period, and wasn’t seen at the school again. Not for the leavers celebrations, results day, final goodbyes - Anne was completely gone. Her younger cousin, who was in Year 9, had also disappeared from school around the same time. She never came back.

That was two years ago now, and people had stopped talking about it so much, but Cathy still heard the occasional curious whisperings of what had happened. No one, at least, not that Cathy knew of, had asked Anne about it when she finally reappeared at the start of the college year. Someone did, however, ask how she got into the college without doing any of her GCSEs. Anne responded with a roll of the eyes and promptly telling the person to ‘fuck off.’

Despite the pity Cathy felt about the rumours that seemed stuck onto Anne, Anne herself didn’t seem all too bothered. She still turned up to college near enough everyday, and every time Cathy saw her, she always had a playful energy about her, a sarcastic wit to her voice every time she spoke and a naturally mischievous glint in her eyes. Cathy was in awe about how someone could always be that happy. Was that the right word? She didn’t know, but Anne always seemed to have her head in the clouds.

Nobody would know any of this if they didn’t share classes with Anne, though. They were mysteries that were locked away at first glance, only to be brought out when you listened too much to the college gossip. One thing that everybody  _ would _ notice about Anne just from a glance was the way she looked. Wrapped up inside her impish aura, there were seeds of beauty. At least, that’s what Cathy thought. She often found herself sending glances over in Anne’s direction during their shared classes, watching as her brow furrowed in concentration or she bit her red-coated lips as she puzzled out a question.

Anne was just attractive in Cathy’s eyes. She had fair features, and even her physical flaws seemed to compliment her appearance. Her hair was brown and sleek, always fastened up into two space buns atop her head. Two thick locks of it were dyed green, and those were the two that were used to tighten up her hairstyle. Originally, the green had been a neon lime that almost matched the colour of her striking eyes, but over time it had faded into the palish mint that it was now, and Anne hadn’t bothered to touch it up. It still looked good, though. Maybe that was why.

None of this was to say that Cathy had a crush on Anne, though. She might have found her decent looking but she was torn when it came to personality. Besides, it wasn’t like she would have a chance even if she did. She had never even spoken to Anne, nor had Anne spoken to her. Well, until now.

Cathy raised an eyebrow in confusion at what Anne had randomly said, unsure of why she had approached if that was all she had to say.

“You’re not the first person to have pointed that out.” Cathy shrugged with nonchalance.

“Just goes to show my point, then.” Anne responded, unmoving, “Are you one of those people who can’t go without a coffee?”

“I guess so.”

Anne hummed with interest. “I don’t really get the hype around coffee, though. I mean, I know it’s to wake you up and stuff, but I’d rather just be tired for a little longer than drink something that doesn’t taste nice. Besides,” Anne raised her arm, “this tastes good and does the same job coffee does.”

That was when Cathy noticed the can of Monster energy that Anne was holding. Tiny droplets of rain had splashed all over it, but that didn’t seem to bother Anne in the slightest. In fact, Cathy was also just noticing how the rain had gotten all over Anne as well, but it didn’t make her look soggy or uncomfortable. Rather, she looked dewy, her rain-dampened skin shining under the fluorescent classroom light and her slightly wettened hair curling cutely at the ends.

“ _ I  _ think coffee tastes nice.” Cathy defended her beloved drink. “Besides, isn’t Monster just liquid sugar?”

“Maybe.” Anne deadpanned, lifting the can to her lips and taking a sip in disregard to Cathy’s criticism. She smirked as she lowered the can, placing it on the desk next to Cathy’s coffee. “But coffee is just caffeine in a cup.”

Cathy couldn’t argue with that.

“They’re just as bad as each other then.”

“Yup.” Anne agreed, popping the ‘p’.

“So, um… why are you here?” Cathy nervously fumbled with her fingers under her desk. She cursed her question for coming out as potentially rude.

“This is my classroom.”

“No, I mean talking to me.”

“Well, class hasn’t started yet, and you’re the only other one here.”

“Okay. Sorry, I’m just not used to people coming up and striking conversation about anything other than grades."

“Then I’ll make sure to keep grades out of the picture whenever I talk to you.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.”

Cathy smiled shyly at Anne, who in turn flashed Cathy a bright grin of her own before picking up her can and taking a few more mouthfuls of the drink.

“Question.” Anne stated as she put the can back down. “Have you actually tried Monster?”

Cathy thought back to it. Surely she had. It was an iconic brand, she had grown up seeing that green claw mark logo everywhere. Hell, she saw it everyday when she went to pick up her second coffee, cans of the stuff lined up on one of the shelves near to the cash register. Yet, even as she scoured her brain, she couldn’t remember one single time she had decided to pick up a can and buy it.

“I actually don’t think I have.” She finally admitted.

“No, really?” Anne, despite asking the question, seemed shocked. “Can’t criticise my liquid sugar until you taste it.”

“Maybe I’ll pick some up and get back to you. But don’t think I’ll be replacing coffee any time soon.”

“Well, it’s at least a start. You’re Catherine Parr, right?”

“I prefer Cathy, but yes.”

“Oh, sorry.  _ Cathy  _ Parr. Got it.” Anne corrected herself, and she actually sounded genuine. “I’m Anne-”

“Boleyn. I know you.”

“My reputation precedes me.”

“Don’t get too cocky.” Cathy chastised, but the tone of her voice was clear enough that it was a joke.

“Rude.” Anne rolled her eyes with faux offence. “Anyways, Cathy, can I come with you?”

“Where? To get Monster with me?”

“Yup,” she habitually popped the ‘p’ again, “How about it? I’m running out at home and I know how to get discounts on the stuff.”

“Discounts?”

“You’ll see if you let me come.”

“I was going to say yes anyway, but the discounts are extra tempting.”

“Discounts are the way to anybody’s heart.”

“You might be right.” Cathy chuckled before moving on. “But I would probably go early in the morning, before class. Is that okay?”

“That’s fine by me. When?”

“Tomorrow?”

“Extra eager.” Anne teased. “I like it. Yeah, tomorrow is fine. Where?”

Cathy found herself fighting not to bite her lip.

“I normally stop at that little square of convenience stores that’s a five minute walk from here. You know, when you turn right from the entrance to go home.”

Anne thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. I know where that is.”

“Alright. There. Tomorrow. At seven thirty.”

“Got it.”

Before they could start talking about anything else, though, the classroom door swung open again and in walked their teacher, followed by a small trail of students. Anne looked back around at Cathy as soon as their teacher had sat down and begun logging on the computer.

“Looks like class is about to start.” She said, picking up her drinking can from Cathy’s desk and finally standing up without the support of the wall. “I’ll talk to you later. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.” Cathy nodded in confirmation.

“Right. See you then.” And then Anne walked away from Cathy’s desk to take her own on the opposite side of the room.

Throughout the whole lesson, it was even more difficult than usual for Cathy to stop her eyes from naturally drifting over to Anne. Her irrelevant interruptions were suddenly less of a problem now than they were before, and her actual useful contributions were scribbled down into Cathy’s own notes at a much faster pace than previously.

Cathy couldn’t figure out why just one quick conversation had triggered this abrupt change in her attitude, but one thing was abundantly clear; she couldn’t wait for tomorrow morning.


	2. Two

The next day, Cathy woke up in the exact same way that she had done the day prior. Her alarm obnoxiously blared through the room, as loud as Jupiter’s thunder, and she was quickly burrowing her hand under her pillow to bring the sound to a stop. Like yesterday, the sky was a dark charcoal blue, the sun just barely peeking up from the distance and the street outside her flat dotted with the customary white glows of streetlamps.

Even though pulling herself out of bed was still a battle of her willpower against her exhaustion, there was a new something inside of Cathy that made it easier to haul herself from her bedsheets and go back and forth between her kitchen, bedroom and bathroom to get ready. It was a spark of curiosity and slight excitement, which had been ignited by Anne the morning previously, and had only grown throughout the rest of Cathy’s day until now.

Today, she was going to go and meet up with Anne before classes started, grab drinks with her and then walk the rest of the way to college with her. Putting it like that made it sound quite mundane, and, truthfully, Cathy didn’t quite know the reason why she was feeling a buzz of excitement propelling her onward. After all, she wasn’t really that much of a people person; the few times she did have conversations with her classmates were when they spoke to her first. Even then she was just waiting for the conversation to end, and she was sure the other person was too, because they had only gone and spoken to her in the absence of one of their other friends.

With Anne, it was different. She wasn’t dreadfully wishing the time would go slower until they met, but rather looking forward to it with excitement. Cathy tried to puzzle this out to herself as she made her morning cup of coffee (because yes, even if she was grabbing Monster in half an hour, she still _needed_ coffee to function), and decided that it was because Anne was a mystery. And a pretty one, at that.

Cathy loved mysteries. They were like a guilty pleasure to her. More often than not, if she was not busying herself with her studies, she was twenty websites deep in some real life unsolved mystery, trying to connect the dots despite the case being cold for years. Other times, she could be found slowly making her way through the pages of mystery novels, her favourite genre of work. So, when Anne, a girl with a mystery that followed her around, wanted to meet up with her outside of school, of course Cathy was going to jump at the chance.

Not that she was going to pry though. Even if she was pulled in by the temptation of potentially seeing inside of a closed book, Cathy knew two things. The first one being not to get her hopes up, but the second, more important one, being that Anne was still just as much of a person as she was. To become her friend just to find out about her past? That was just cruel.

Perhaps blaming Cathy’s interest in Anne solely on her curiosities about her was the wrong thing to do. More accurately, Cathy’s interest in Anne started because of her curiosities, but was solidified by the conversation they had shared together yesterday. If she had not enjoyed the brief five minutes talking to Anne before class started, then Cathy would have said no to meeting with Anne this morning. She was doing this because she actually enjoyed Anne’s company, and not for anything else.

Within time, Cathy was ready to leave. She dropped her toothbrush back into the pot, grabbed her bag, threw her lanyard around her neck and then was shutting and locking the door behind her. By now, the morning sun had cracked out from behind the clouds. Droplets of dew spread all over the grass of her front garden shimmered like crystals in the light it provided, and the early breeze felt less ruthless than it had been the day before.

Cathy began to walk, trying her best to reign her pace in and not be seen as too enthusiastic, but it was a bit of a challenge. This was one of the few times that she valued the unchanging normalcy of her town, because she used the everyday cues that she had grown so accustomed to to time her pace. She made sure she was as aligned with the morning dog walkers as she was any other day, that she passed the groups of secondary schoolers at the same places she did usually, and that the cyclists flew past her when they were supposed to.

Either Cathy had timed it perfectly or none of this was necessary, because when she arrived at the square of roadside conveniences, Anne was already there. She was leaning against a lamppost, arms crossed around her chest in a huddle to make the warmth inside of her coat stay there, and eyes fixed at a random spot in the distant sky.

“Hi,” Cathy greeted as she got closer to Anne.

Anne startled, not having noticed Cathy coming, before sighing in relief when she noticed who it was.

“God, you scared me.” Anne laughed, shaking her head. “Hey.”

“Sorry.” Cathy shrugged. “You did seem pretty intent in that stare though.”

“Not really. I was just watching the clouds. Must’ve got lost in a daydream or something.”

There were no clouds in the direction that Anne was looking in. Cathy didn’t question it.

Stepping away from the post she was leaning on, Anne took the lead and Cathy followed as she approached the storefronts. Instead of going into one of the small convenience stores, as Cathy had expected, Anne instead walked right into one of the small express stores for one of the bigger supermarket chains. Cathy didn’t often go here, mainly because it had the same things as every other store in this square, and she thought it was better to support the small businesses, but she wasn’t about to protest. Besides, considering what Anne had said the day previously about discounts, it only seemed obvious that this was the store they were going to enter.

Anne led Cathy past the counter and to the back of the store, into an aisle which was blocked from view of the cashier single handedly manning the place at the front by rows of shelves. Upon a quick glance, it became clear that Anne had taken her to the confectionary aisle; bags of brightly packaged sweets and chocolate filled one wall, and the other was lined with coolers, that were filled with refrigerated drinks.

“Can you hold this?” Anne shrugged her bag off of her shoulder and zipped it open, holding it out for Cathy to take.

“Sure.” Cathy nodded, quickly picking it up from Anne and peering inside, though there was nothing of interest in there. Just class notes.

Anne nodded in thanks, then pulled open one of the cooler doors. She took two cans off of the shelf, placing them in the bag, and Cathy expected her to stop there but instead carried on until she had bagged up six cans.

“Running out at home,” Anne explained.

That made sense. Cathy would do the same if she had to stock up on coffee granules.

Gratefully taking the bag, Anne zipped it back up and threw it over her shoulder once more, making Cathy wince at the thought of disturbing the drinks inside. Still, Anne didn’t seem to give it that much consideration, and simply grabbed a KitKat from the shelves lined with candy before leading Cathy back out to the counter.

When they got to the till, Cathy expected Anne to take her bag back off and put it down, ready for the contents to be scanned, but that never happened. Instead, she just placed the KitKat down on the surface with a bright smile to the employee, and the employee was none the wiser as he scanned the bar of chocolate and handed it back. Cathy watched with apprehension as Anne jammed her debit card into the reader and punched in her pin numbers, realising that she wasn’t going to procure the six cans in her bag for scanning, and fearing that somehow, even though the employee couldn’t see what they were doing behind the shelves, she was going to be asked why she wasn’t paying for the drinks.

Much to Cathy’s relief, that never happened. After taking the receipt for her purchase and scrunching it into her coat pocket, Anne flashed Cathy a knowing grin and they left the store.

“You stole those six cans of Monster.” Cathy pointed out as they sat down on the bench outside.

“I prefer saying borrowed. Besides, what did you think I meant by discounts?” Anne tore the red wrapper of the KitKat open, snapping two fingers of the chocolate off and extending them to Cathy. “Want some?”

Despite her torn feelings about what had just happened, Cathy took the offered chocolate anyway. She furrowed her eyebrows as she thought about what had just happened, biting down on one of the fingers as she did so.

“Why did you steal them?” Cathy finally asked.

“Borrow.” Anne corrected.

“Why did you _borrow_ them?”

“KitKats are 80p. Monsters are like… £1.55? I almost failed maths, but I’m pretty sure buying six cans is spending ten pounds that I don’t have.”

“I guess that makes sense.”

“I’m sorry if it made you uncomfortable.” Anne shrugged, scrunching up the KitKat wrapper and stuffing that into her pocket too.

“No, don’t worry. It didn’t. I was just confused.” Cathy reassured. “I’ve just never stolen from a shop before. Especially not here. They’re all small businesses.”

“No, I would never steal from a small business.” Anne answered. “That’s why I just picked the express store. It’s just a mini outlet of a supermarket. That company is worth millions of pounds, they aren’t gonna know if ten goes missing. Besides. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t need to.”

“Sounds like a Robin Hood mentality you’ve got there.” Cathy attempted to lighten the mood with a bit of teasing, and was grateful to see in Anne’s playful roll of the eyes that it worked.

“Maybe, but Robin Hood was a good guy, as far as I’m aware.”

“He was.”

  
“Nothing wrong with that, then.” Anne grinned before pulling her bag into her lap and unzipping it. She pulled out two of the cans inside, handing one to Cathy and keeping one for herself. “Here you go.”

“Thanks.” Cathy smiled, taking the can from Anne. It was cold in her hands, the chill of the refrigerator it had been in still trapped inside. After watching Anne click hers open, she punctured the top of her own, listening to the fizz of the drink as the air escaped.

“Cheers.” Anne raised her can, and Cathy met it in the sky with her own. They chucked slightly at the dumb gesture, and then both drunk at the same time.

It was definitely different to have something this sweet so early in the morning, but the fizz dancing around her tongue and the roof of her mouth gave her the same jolt to awakeness as coffee usually did. As for the taste, it was a stark contrast to the bitterness of her usual coffee, but it wasn’t bad.

“What do you think?” Anne asked, resting her can on her knee.

“I like it.” Cathy nodded, taking another, larger and less tentative sip.

“Someone better tell the Cathy from yesterday that liquid sugar isn’t all that bad after all, then.”

“Someone needs to tell the Anne of today that even though Cathy can appreciate the taste of this, she still prefers coffee.”

“Anne of today thinks Cathy is lying.”

“She is not!”

“If she insists.” Anne laughed, shaking her head and standing up. “We should probably start walking to class.”

If Anne hadn’t reminded her, Cathy might have stayed on that bench all day to talk.

“You’re right. Sociology first. Again.”

“Last lesson before the mock assessment. Woooo.” Anne sarcastically commented, throwing her bag over her shoulders in the same careless fashion as earlier as they began to walk.

“Yes, I just love writing essays about families and relationships.” Cathy continued the joke in a mock tone of her own.

“Wait, what?” Anne paused, “Families and relationships?”

“Yeah, that’s what the exam is on.”

“Shit.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been spending my free time going over the crime and deviance section of the textbook.”

“Oh.”

Anne just laughed and shook her head, lifting the can to her lips and taking a long mouthful before continuing. “It’s alright, though. It’s just a mock.”

Even though Anne had shrugged it off as quickly as she had begun worrying about it, Cathy’s brow still knitted in pity for her. Although they were cut from different cloths, Cathy knew that if she had been studying the wrong part of the textbook and had only noticed days before the test, she would have sprung into a terrible panic. So she wanted to help, or at least extend an offer.

“It’s not too much to go over. I can go through it with you, if you’d find that helpful.”

Anne’s eyes seem to lighten a bit as she considered the offer given to her.

“That would be nice,” she finally said, “but I promised I wouldn’t bring grades into conversation with you.”

Cathy honestly hadn’t expected Anne to stay so true to her word.

“Yeah, but I’m the one bringing it up. So you’re technically not breaking the rules.”

“Well, if you put it that way…”

Anne turned to face Cathy fully, her eyes shining with plea as if Cathy had not already offered to help her.

“I’m guessing you do want to go over it.”

“Yup.” The ‘p’ was popped.

“Okay, when?”

“It needs to be soon… is today good? Or is that too soon?”

“When today?”

“I dunno. I have sociology and then drama. And then I have a break for about an hour and then literature.”

“Looks like we have the same timetable. I have sociology then language, and then literature.”

“So how about the break?”

“Yeah, I can do that. In the library?”

“I’ll be waiting for you there.” Anne gave Cathy a wink. Cathy’s heart did a somersault.

They talked about other mundane things for the rest of the way until they got to the front gate of the college. Like yesterday, the grounds were quite empty at this time because of the early start, but not entirely so. The pair made their way over to the A-Level building, Anne swiping her lanyard to open the sliding entry doors, giving a jokingly courteous bow and an ‘after you’ as Cathy walked through.

When they got to their classroom, a few people were already sitting around. It was one of the only times that Cathy was not the first one there, but she didn’t really mind her slack in punctuality. It wasn’t like she had arrived late, and she had been enjoying spending the time with Anne.

Her sociology class passed by in a blur. She barely looked up once for the entire class, her teacher deciding to lay down so much information that Cathy couldn’t even pause her scribbling of notes for a second, else risk falling behind. Occasionally, she took sips at the can of Monster on her desk, but only small ones; they were the only ones she could fit between the changing of the presentation slides.

Luckily, her language class was at a much more relaxed pace, allowing her to sit back and think a little more. Despite the brevity, she had enjoyed spending her morning with Anne. Having stuck to routine her whole life, Cathy didn’t expect herself to actually enjoy herself when she finally broke it, but here she was, thinking back to the morning and wishing to turn back the clock and relive it.

Even taking out the fact that it was a break from her consistent, unchanging routine, Cathy still didn’t know why she enjoyed it that much. It wasn’t like they did anything special, only getting drinks and walking to class together. They briefly talked between themselves but it was nothing too interesting. And yet, Cathy still kept her eye on the classroom clock, waiting for the hands to hit the hour so she could pack her things and meet Anne in the library.

The library, where they would be studying for the upcoming sociology assessment. Again, it was a mundane thing, something no one would look forward to, but she was excitedly watching the minutes tick by in the time she had between notetaking. Something about spending time with Anne was just good, to put the feeling in the most simple of terms. Anne’s energy was just contagious. The carefree, relaxed aura she carried herself around with was encapsulating if you got too close, and Cathy already had.

Not that she was regretting it. For once, she felt like Cathy Parr: the person, rather than Catherine Parr: the student, and that all had to do with hanging out with Anne, because Anne didn’t fill their conversations with questions about the homework or pleas for study tips. She argued with Cathy over their favourite drinks, convinced her to expand her tastes. Anne wasn’t afraid to break the rules, even in front of Cathy. Cathy liked the change of pace. She liked having someone to walk to school with, going to a different shop in the morning, being the one to bring up academics instead of having someone seek her out about the topic. She wanted it to continue.

By the time her language class had ended, Cathy was bouncing her knee underneath the table, feebly channeling her excited energy into the small, rapid movement. As soon as she was dismissed, she flipped her notebook shut, stuffed it into her bag along with her textbooks and was out the door, offering her teacher a hurried thank you as she went.

She managed to finish the rest of the can of Monster before the class ended, which might have been further explanation for her eagerness, and she threw the empty container into the nearest bin as she passed it. The drink was better than she had originally anticipated, Cathy would admit that, but nothing quite trumped the high of coffee. Not even the sweet thrumming of sugar thrill coursing through her could topple the pleasurably bitter taste, slowly stirring her awake with each sip.

Thinking about coffee, Cathy realised she was without anything to drink. And she had missed out on her second cup of the day, having sacrificed it for the Monster can. She quickly recounted her route from the classroom to the library, and knew there was plenty of time to stop off at the cafeteria on the way and grab a cup to take with her. Besides, she was already starting to feel the effects of not having a cup kick in, a dull ache drumming at the top of her head. Getting a cup would surely help.

Making away across the campus, she detoured into the cafeteria building halfway to the library. It was slightly busy with it being just an hour after midday, but the lunchtime rush had mostly dispersed. Luckily, the majority of the queuers were waiting at the college’s own food foyer, so Cathy weaved between two people in the line and walked straight to the booth that was rented out by the Costa coffee shop.

As she approached, the barista manning the till smiled at her, and Cathy returned the gesture. Having come here so much, she had become familiar with everyone who worked at the college Costa, and was on a first name basis with many of them.

“The usual?” The barista of that day asked, already picking up a takeaway coffee cup from the stack next to her.

“Please.” Cathy nodded, pulling out her purse and flicking through the cards for her debit. Fishing it out, she looked around the place. “It’s not that busy today.”

“Nope.” She shook her head, drumming her fingers against the coffee machine as it rumbled in action. “People just can’t appreciate coffee in the same way you do. No one else on this campus comes here as much as you.”

“Way to insult your most loyal customer on her drinking habits.” Cathy feigned offence.

“You know I was just joking.” She playfully smiled, taking the freshly filled cup and pushing a takeaway lid on the top before passing it across the counter to Cathy. “Are you sitting in today?”

“Not today. I’m going to help someone revise in the library.” Cathy shook her head, swiping her debit card across the reader.

“Who?”

“A girl in my class. Anne Boleyn. She’s actually quite fun to hang around with.” Cathy said, picking up her drink as soon as she had put her purse back away. “Thank you.”

“Any time. I’d say come again, but I already know you will.”

Cathy rolled her eyes playfully before bidding her goodbye and going back on her way to the library. Quickly, she was there, pausing to check in at the entrance with a tap of her lanyard against the scanner. She glanced down at the digital list of people who had checked in before her as she did so, noticing Anne’s name already on the screen and knowing she was around here somewhere.

It wasn’t a big place, so she was quick to find. Rounding the corner of some bookshelves, she spotted Anne sitting by a seat next to the open window, gazing out at the open football field of the campus and down at the players. She wore the same trancelike expression as she did staring at the sky the same morning, and Cathy felt almost guilty to interrupt for a second time.

“Hey,” Cathy said, sliding down in the seat across from Anne.

Like before, Anne startled slightly. “Second time today I’ve jumped. You’re scarier than you look.”

“Or you’re just an easy person to scare.”

“I prefer my way of thinking.”

“If it helps you sleep at night.”

Cathy’s lips tugged into a smile as she rested her cup down on the table. She popped off the lid to help the drink cool down more, resting it on the windowsill. Anne glanced at the drink and then back at Cathy.

“Back on your beat.”

“The Monster was good, I’ll give you that. But nothing will beat this.”

“Whatever you say.”

When she had settled, Cathy dug into her bag and pulled out her folder of sociology notes and the relevant textbook, sitting it in front of the table between herself and Anne.

“Okay, should we get started?”

Anne readily straightened her posture. “Let’s.”

“Tell me everything you remember about the families and relationships unit.”

For the first half an hour of the break, they went through everything Anne couldn’t already recite from memory about the topic. Surprisingly, despite her insistence that she hadn’t even looked over the relevant pages, Anne recalled quite a lot of the key knowledge needed. They slowly worked through the pages of the textbooks, writing down the important notes, highlighting useful sections and going through key concepts a few times over to make sure they stuck.

Sometimes, as they both reached to flick the page or point out a specific section of text printed out in front of them, their hands would brush together for a split second. Anne showed no sign of a reaction whenever this happened, but it always made Cathy’s heart drop to her chest and then shoot back up again. Anne’s hand was bigger than hers; the fingers longer and slender, but Cathy couldn’t help but notice how Anne’s palm looked like it could perfectly hold her own hand. She also noticed how Anne’s hand was slightly cold to touch, and felt a surge of want– need– to warm it up with her own. Of course, she did not act on this; only silently thought about it to herself.

Many page turns, note breaks and brushes of the hands later, Anne reached over to flip to the next page, but instead closed the book shut. Cathy looked up at her in confusion.

“Is it time to go already?” She asked, twisting around to look up at the clock mounted on the wall behind her. There was still half an hour left until their shared literature class, and a couple more pages to get through. Time was of the essence right now.

“No, but I have the book at home. I’ll complete the rest of the notes I’m missing later.” Anne responded, pushing the closed book across the surface of the table and back to Cathy. “We have thirty minutes left until class, and I’m bored of learning about families and relationships in society. I’d rather learn more about you instead.”

Cathy’s heart leapt inside her chest. Thank god she was sitting down, because she felt like putty underneath the gaze of Anne’s thoughtful eyes, which only glistened like finely polished emeralds in the sun that peeked in through the window next to them. It was only natural to feel this skittish when she was face to face with someone who looked the way Anne did, and especially when she just said something like that. Even if she didn’t mean anything by it. Steadying her breathing, Cathy quickly recollected herself.

“What would you like to know?”

“I don’t know. Hit me with anything about you.”

“Um… my favourite colour is blue.”

“Okay. Mine’s green.” Anne responded, quickly moving on. “What about something nobody else knows about you?”

“Well, it’s a little hard to just come up with that off the top of my head.”

“Is pride a fault or a virtue?”

Cathy was expecting questions like ‘what’s your favourite colour?’ or ‘what’s your zodiac sign?’ or literally anything else along those lines. Basically, anything that wasn’t bringing philosophy into the conversation.

Still, she wasn’t complaining. What was the point in small talk, learning base facts about another person, when these conversations were not only more interesting but revealed much more than a favourite colour or a birth date ever could? Topics like these, ones that made her think and fully consider before she answered, were her favourites. She bit her lip to stop herself from smiling.

“It can be neither, and it can be both. Without pride, you can’t have self respect, but if you have too much then you just become arrogant.” Cathy explained her answer coolly.

“I agree with that.” Anne nodded her head with the words.

“Can I ask you a question now?”

“Go ahead.”

Cathy hummed in thought as she tried to come up with something that matched the thought provocativeness Anne’s.

“What does it mean to live a good life?”

“As long as someone feels happy in life, then they live a good life. It’s down to the individual what that happiness is.” Anne explained. “For me, I think it’s in speaking to people.”

“I’ve never really had anyone to speak to. Not properly.”

“Well, I’m going to change that.”

Cathy’s heart did another reel inside her chest. Anne’s words were honey, and Cathy had a sweet tooth.

“How?” Cathy asked.

“Nope. My turn to ask a question.” Anne refused. “Do you have any plans this weekend?”

_Complete my homework for the week, start thinking about university applications, hopefully squeeze in a few episodes of the Netflix show I’ve been lagging behind on,_ Cathy thought.

“No,” Cathy said. “My turn. Do you want to hang out with me this weekend?”

“Yes.” Anne nodded. “My go. What’s your number?”

Breaking the cycle of questions, Cathy said, “Give me your phone, I’ll add myself to your contacts.”

Anne grabbed her bag out from under the table and dug around inside it, eventually pulling out her phone. It was the first time Cathy saw the thing, and she didn’t even recognise what brand it was. All she could tell was that it was rugged, battered, and presumably cheap. A large hairline crack ran down the touchscreen and the paint on the back had slowly started chipping off.

Cathy did not point any of this out, instead focusing on typing her digits into a new contact slot. Anne watched closely as she did, as if making sure that Cathy would not swipe off and look at her other contacts and text messages. After finishing her contact name off with a blue heart, she handed the phone back to Anne who sent a hello text, just to make sure the number was correct. It was.

There were twenty minutes left until their literature class, and they spent the next fifteen of them lounging away at the table in the library. They talked quietly between themselves in an effort to not disturb the people who were actually using the room as a study space, asking more questions and getting more useful insight about one another. Cathy sipped down the remnants of her coffee until a useless amount remained puddled at the bottom and, by the time she was finished, it was time to start walking to the classroom.

When they got to the door, two minutes left to spare, Anne gave Cathy a smile as she departed for her seat at the front of the class.

“I’ll text you.”

And then Cathy made her way to her seat at the back of the class, opened up the book they were reading through and listened through the outlay of information about the specific scene they were covering that day. Despite her best efforts to remain focused, her mind kept lingering back to the library, to prospects of the upcoming weekend, to _Anne_.

She looked up at the girl in question, who had just raised her hand to make a contribution, and smiled to herself. There was something special about her. Cathy wasn’t going to let it go.


	3. Three

After exchanging numbers, spending time with Anne just became a more and more frequent part of Cathy’s life. More often than not, she was with Anne, whether that was in or outside of college. Cathy had underestimated how nice it would really be to actually have a friend, because where before she was impartial to her loneliness, now she didn’t want Anne to leave.

When it was just her and Anne alone, it was like they were the only ones on the planet. Cathy was able to relax and unwind, to throw the responsibilities and worries of college away for a little while and just talk to Anne about anything and everything. And Anne was great to talk to. She had an infinite amount of facets, and Cathy didn’t know which one she liked best. Arguing over whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza? Or discussing the possibilities of life outside of earth? Their conversations were completely different every time; ranging from light to loaded, silly to sincere - and Cathy loved every minute of them.

In fact, she just loved Anne. She loved her sharp tongue and witty comebacks. She loved her inner processes, the way she seemed to always be thinking about something even with her brashness and spontaneity. She loved the way Anne’s red lips brightly grinned when she was happy, or curled when she wasn’t. She loved the trails of faded mint in her burnt umber hair and how they wrapped carefully around each of her space buns, fixating it in place. She loved her striking green eyes, which up close looked like ocean pools under an evening sun. She loved the way Anne filled silences with humming, how she bounced her knee so she was never sitting fully still, how her cheeks dimpled ever so slightly when she smiled and how her voice husked a little when she said Cathy’s name.

Cathy knew she was in way too deep, way too quickly. But, after being a lone wolf for most of her life, how could she not become infatuated with the first person who gave her attention? Especially when that person was Anne Boleyn; who, even before all of this, Cathy thought was the image of a walking goddess on earth.

The overwhelming loneliness that Cathy had been refusing to acknowledge to herself about her life was melted away by Anne’s presence. She finally felt like she belonged somewhere other than tucked away in her flat or crouching over her desk at the back of a classroom, relentlessly scribbling down notes. What was more was that she felt like she belonged with someone. Gone were the days where she floated through life alone, keeping her head down and sticking to herself, silently dreaming that someday, something would change for her. They were replaced with happier, more fulfilling days. Satisfaction no longer came from a bright red A on a returned paper, but from an evening spent doing anything and nothing at all with Anne.

Cathy was happy. Anne was like a healing force for her. And, whilst it was definitely one of the biggest benefits of befriending her, making Cathy not feel lonely anymore wasn’t the only thing Anne did.

One of the times they spent together was after an extremely short day at college. Whilst being in two separate classes for the day wasn’t that great, they only had one period each and so were soon enough reunited. Since meeting Anne, the time it took for Cathy to pack up her things after class and leave was steadily decreasing, a new record almost everyday. This showed in the single swipe of her arm over her desk, which was all it took to pick her pens and notepad, dropping it hurriedly in her bag. She gave her usual quick thank you to her teacher as she left the classroom, lazily disposing of her empty coffee cup in the bin on the way out.

Anne was standing just outside of Cathy’s building in wait, leaning against the wall by the door and kicking at a loose paving tile with her faded Vans sneakers. Cathy smiled when she saw her.

“Hey.” She waved slightly, walking up to Anne.

Anne seemed to brighten up as she straightened her back off of the wall. She returned the smile and took a few steps towards Cathy to complete the shrinking distance between them. Seeing Anne look so happy to see her was always a moment that made Cathy’s heart inwardly flutter. To her, Anne was a gift that fell right from the sky and into her lap. For Anne to feel any sort of similar way about Cathy felt unrealistic, and yet here was the evidence in Anne’s expression.

“How was class?” Anne asked, green eyes sweeping across Cathy’s face, searching for a clue in her countenance.

“It was alright.” Cathy responded, “We did diphthongs.”

“Right. A-level English language. I barely passed the GCSE, that shit is lost on me.”

“You’re pretty good at A-level lit though. And don’t argue, I’m in your class.”

“Maybe.” The corner of Anne’s lips curled into a faint smile at the compliment. “But lit and lang are two completely different subjects.”

“Don’t sell yourself short.” Cathy pouted, lightly elbowing Anne’s side. “Anyway, how was your class? Drama, right?”

“Yup. We had a theory lesson, so it was a little boring. Probably better than learning about diphthongs though.”

“Definitely.” Cathy chuckled.

After walking aimlessly around the town for a few minutes, the pair found themselves back at the small square of roadside convenience shops where they had met outside of college for the first time. The place was becoming a recurring location for them to end up at, visiting it together almost daily, and almost never on purpose. It was always the same routine when they ended up there.

Cathy walked alone into her favourite little convenience, approached the counter and asked for her regular cup of coffee. It took longer to make than what it did in the mornings, what with the string of customers coming in and out considering it was actually a normal time of the day to shop once classes were over, but it wasn’t long before the machine was spitting out a stream of hot coffee. The employee picked the cup up a little carelessly, causing some of the drink to spill over the lid (much to Cathy’s dismay), before fixing a takeaway lid over the top and passing it across the counter to her.

If she was not as shy as she was, she might have tried to barter the price down a bit in compensation of the few precious drops that were spilt out. Then again, she didn’t want to be  _ that  _ type of customer, and it was only a few pence she was missing. A few pence didn’t make any difference. At least, not to most people. Some people needed every extra penny that was available. Anne seemed like one of those people, but Cathy wasn’t going to ask.

When Cathy got back out of the store, fresh cup of steaming coffee in hand, Anne was already waiting outside, just as she was before back at college. Between her fingers was a half eaten Twix, from which she snapped a clean piece off to offer to Cathy. This had become routine, and Cathy gladly accepted the chocolate, albeit small enough for Cathy to finish it off in a bite. Anne sent her an apologetic smile for this, having eaten most of the bar whilst Cathy was still getting her coffee. She was instantly forgiven.

It was late afternoon by that point, the last hour before the commuting rush hour. By the look of the sun in the sky, slowly starting to descend from its midday peak, there wasn’t a lot of time before daylight left them either. The street they stood on was mostly empty, spare for a few cars rolling past and the occasional kid walking home from school after staying there a little later than usual, probably for a club or extra class. For a moment, Cathy revelled in the tranquility, one of the only things she liked about the small town she lived in. That small benefit did nothing to outweigh the dullness of the place, though; she still would have left in a heartbeat, if given the choice.

“Where do you reckon we should go?” Anne asked, fiddling with one of the straps on her bag, pulling it up tighter. Cathy noted how the bag seemed to slouch heavier than what it did before Anne went into the express store, and had a good idea what she had crammed inside there.

“I don’t know.” Cathy shrugged in response. For the most part, even with their constantly being in one another’s company, Anne and Cathy didn’t have a lot of places to go. The town they lived in was small, and was built for necessity rather than enjoyment. Most of the buildings were homes, with a few supermarkets, some convenience stores dotted around and the local primary, secondary and college institutions. There were very few recreational places around, and the ones that actually were there required money upon entry.

“What about the cinema?” Anne asked. “There’s a new movie coming out. Some coming of age thing, but it looks good.”

“We would need to buy tickets, though.”

At Cathy’s concern, Anne just flashed a telling look. Immediately, Cathy was looped into whatever scheme was floating through Anne’s head, and she trusted Anne enough not to get caught for the mischief that would come of it. After all, she had been an accomplice to a lot of Anne’s minor crimes since the day they met, and she had yet to ever be caught. She was like a criminal mastermind. At least, she was in the field of stealing energy drinks and sugar filled snacks. Though maybe that was how crimelords started out. Cathy wouldn’t know.

That was how Cathy found herself at the front entrance of the local cinema, standing at Anne’s side. Even though it was one of the few entertainment buildings around, the establishment was no sight to marvel at. No refurbishments or renovations had been made recently, and that was made abundantly clear by the retro carpet that wasn’t stylish enough to call aesthetic, the griminess of the glass on the doors and the battered look of the place in general.

Before going inside, Anne led Cathy to one of the posters that was stuck up on the wall by the entrance. It looked completely out of place there; a relatively sleek and modern poster plastered onto a grimy wall, but even then it was still peeling off a little bit. Printed on the matte paper, beside the actionpacked screencaps of movie scenes, was a listed schedule of the films that were set to play, and when.

Anne trailed her pinkie finger across the schedule until she reached the correct date, and then went down the list to find what movie was playing at that very moment. A smile brightened on her face when she saw what it was.

“It’s the movie I was talking about earlier!” She beamed, tapping her finger against the part of the poster that said that.

“So you want to go and see it? Because I don’t mind.”

“Can we?”

“Yeah, let’s go in.” Cathy nodded, walking away from the poster and to the front doors. “I can pay for the tickets if you want. Both of ours.”

“Don’t worry. I have a discount here too.”

Following Anne’s lead, Cathy walked inside. Instantly, the smell of buttery popcorn wafted towards her, making her mouth water. She sent a glance in the direction of the food counter, eyeing jealously the mother who was filling up a large bucket of toffeed corn for her children, or the pair of teenage girls who were each filling up a slushy cup. Reminding herself of the cup of coffee in her hand, Cathy brought her eyes back to the direction she was walking in.

The cinema’s lobby was fairly empty. A low buzz of chatter hung in the air and some people still remained queued for tickets, but, for the most part, the customers were already in their specified screening rooms. Cathy grew a little confused when Anne joined the back of the queue waiting for entry to the screening room considering they hadn’t got tickets, but the line of people in front of them dispersed fairly quickly and she didn’t have time to ask what the plan was before they were face to face with the employee.

“Your ticket?”

“No, we don’t wanna come see a film.” Anne shook her head. “I was just wondering if I could run in and use your restroom. It’s back there, isn’t it?”

The employee looked between them both with a skeptical look but, as if tired after a long day, simply opened the rope and stepped aside for them to go through. Holding her expression until they were on the other side and out of earshot of the employee, Cathy finally twisted around to face Anne with raised eyebrows.

“It’s  _ that  _ easy to just get into a movie for free?”

“Most floor employees don’t really care about what a customer does. Especially not this late in the day.” Anne smirked proudly. “Anyway, I was eavesdropping on the person in front of us. Our movie is in screening room three.”

Finding the door marked number three, Anne and Cathy ducked inside of it and into the dark room. The room was completely silent apart from the rustling of food packets and, obviously, the movie playing over the loudspeakers. Luckily, the tickets had not sold out, and it was easy to find an empty pair of seats tucked to the side and away from everyone else at the back of the place. Although they had missed the first few minutes, Cathy was just glad that the plan had worked.

She barely focused on the movie, though. Her thoughts were swimming deep, all centered around the girl she was sitting next to. Before she had met Anne, Cathy would never have dreamt of pulling a trick like this. Yet, here she was, enthralled by the action of doing something wrong, happy adrenaline pumping through her veins as she tried to remain still in her seat. It certainly didn’t help that Anne was practically leaning on her shoulder.

Despite keeping her eyes on the screen, Cathy didn’t comprehend a lot of what was going on. Her mind was racing. Inside of her, a feeling of triumph stirred around, sending jolts of tingling excitement down and throughout her. At the bottom of her gut, and then slowly seeping around to encompass her entire being, Cathy could feel her confidence to take risks returning. It built up slowly at first, before picking up the pace and glorifully hacking away at the strict standards she had been holding herself up against for her whole life. The need to constantly follow protocol crumbled away, replaced by the simple pleasure that came from stepping out of line. She felt unrestricted, boundless and free. She liked the feeling.

The movie went by in a blur, and soon enough the final shot blackened out and the credits started rolling. Straightening up from the slouch she had fallen into, Cathy glanced over at Anne, who was already up on her feet in a stretch. A trail of people had already made their way to the doors, and Cathy watched them leave as she also stood up, mirroring Anne in the way she stretched the tension of sitting down for hours straight out of her body.

Eventually, the two clambered out of their row and then out of the screening room door and back into the cinema lobby. Cathy squinted at the sudden burst of light after being inside the dark room for so long, but quickly acquiesced to it. Walking out of the cinema, one amongst the thrum of people who were all chatting about what they had just seen, Cathy felt another thing she hadn’t felt in a long time; a sense of being a part of something. She was just one in a group of many, but they had all just shared the same two hour long experience. The thought made her heart flutter, and she reached around to latch onto Anne’s arm, as if to share the moment. Her heart just swelled even more when Anne didn’t shake her away, or even look at her weirdly for the gesture. She supposed that it made sense, given that they didn’t want to lose each other in the crowd, but it didn’t change the fact that her mind was racing with the implications.

It was when they got outside and a few steps out the way of everyone else that Anne finally detached herself from Cathy. The sky had darkened to an inky black whilst they were inside the cinema, the sinking sun from before long since disappeared, replaced by the moon and stars hanging lazily in the sky.

“I know we were just sitting down for a long time,” Cathy began, hugging her arms to her chest as the cold nighttime air began to stab at her, “but I’m full of energy.”

“Me too.” Anne agreed, and that showed in the way she was barely standing still; practically dancing on her two feet. “I think I have another idea of where to go. If you don’t want to go home yet.”

Glancing down at her phone in her pocket, Cathy read the display. Seven pm.

“I’ll stay out.”

“Great.”

Once again, Cathy followed Anne, though this time she had no idea where they were going. On the way there, they talked about the events of the movie, though Cathy mainly listened and nodded along given the fact she barely paid it any attention. With darkness over the town, the streets were almost entirely empty now, everyone having retired inside. She didn’t know what to think when Anne started leading them to the outskirts of the town, but they didn’t fully leave the place before she stopped at the entrance of a junkyard.

Confused, Cathy followed Anne inside there too. The place was completely isolated from the sight of anyone else, sitting at the town’s border. It was made by a circular iron fence, which kept all the trash trapped inside. Piles of scrap were stacked against the fence, some even reaching far above their heads and looming almost scarily in the dark, as if one push could make the junk tip. Lights were stuck to the fence at even intervals, illuminating the place, and Cathy could make out an empty clearing in the middle of the yard, in which sat a single rusted oil canister.

“What are we doing here?” Cathy asked, looking sideways and towards Anne.

“Just wait here.” Anne said, jogging to the side and up to one of the stacks of junk metal. Cathy couldn’t make out what she was doing in the dark, only seeing her pick up some things at the foot of the pile.

She came back with two worn down baseball bats and a glass bottle. The bats were splintered and old, clearly wearing away and fitting in perfectly with the scenery of the place. The bottle looked relatively clean, spare for a few shards cracked away from the top of the rim.

“Take this.” Anne passed one of the bats to Cathy, and then approached the oil canister at the centre of the place and set the glass bottle atop of it. She turned back around to Cathy. “I come here a lot by myself, when I have a lot of some sort of emotion and need to get it out. In this case, it’s just a lot of energy. It might not feel like a lot. I mean, we’re literally standing in the middle of a junkyard. But I like it here. It helps me cope with things, and get things out. Like this.”

And then, turning on her heel, Anne raised the baseball bat and guided it soaring through the air until it hit the glass bottle. Instantly, the silent air was filled with the sound of the glass shattering, small jagged green shards flying out and landing with dull clunks atop the canister or onto the debris floor. Despite it being a swift motion, Anne flexed her shoulders and then turned to Cathy with a smile on her face.

“Wanna try?”

All it took was a nod, and then Anne was off scavenging the outskirts of the site until she procured a second glass bottle from the junk. She set it atop the oil canister and then took a few steps backward, bouncing on her tiptoes and digging the end of her bat into the dirt floor as she watched Cathy raise her arm to make a hit.

Biting her lip, Cathy stared at the bottle atop the canister with determination. Her knuckles whitened around the handle of her bat, gripping it tightly and feeling explosions of tension up and down her fingers the longer she waited before she swung. Pent up energy rushed to her arms, urging her to make the shot. And she did.

She missed.

The top of her bat went flying through the air, just brushing over the top of the bottle and making it wobble slightly, but not tip.

“Oh.” Cathy sounded, looking at Anne almost apologetically.

Anne just smiled, but not in a way of encouragement or mockery. Rather, unless Cathy’s eyes were deceiving her, she looked affectionate.

“Let me try to help.”

She dropped her bat to the ground and came to stand behind Cathy. Outstretching her hands, Anne took Cathy’s own and guided them into place, ever so slightly changing Cathy’s stance.

“It’s not hard at all, you’ll commit it to muscle memory after a few goes.” Anne explained, tightening her hold on Cathy’s hand and then swinging back the bat.

It was as before, the bat soaring through the air. Cathy watched the end of it with bated breath, letting Anne’s hands guide her back down towards the bottle. This time, it connected. With another shattering sound breaking the nighttime silence, the bottle broke apart, pieces of the glass falling all over.

Watching the glass explode before her very eyes, and as a direct result of something she had done, caused a sensation of excitement to pump through Cathy’s brains. Energy spiked in her palms, forcing her to grip onto the bat even harder. It was such a simple motion, a swing and then the loud splintering sound, followed by the sight of glass showering down over the canister and floor. And yet, it excited Cathy. It made her feel free.

“Wanna go by yourself now?”

Cathy looked back behind her shoulder, where Anne was still standing. Her heart jumped at the sight of the moon reflecting in her emerald eyes, the slight parting of her lips in a gleeful grin. Matching that jubilant expression, and allowing the rushing feeling of boundlessness to take over her, Cathy gave Anne a nod.

“Get me another bottle.”

For what felt like hours, the two took it in turns resting up old pieces of junk onto the canister and then throwing their blows to smash it into pieces. There was an indescribable feeling of joy that sprung from each swing and each hit at the trash. Watching fragments of junk explode before her eyes only made Cathy want to do it more, hearing the sound of the bat and the trash colliding buzzing in her stomach.

Cathy began to imagine her insecurities and demons as the trash. Her hits got harder, more passionate. She began to yell as she made the swings, which in turn made Anne laugh, and the sound was like music to Cathy’s ears. It made Cathy feel alive. In that moment, there was just the wind through her hair as she swung, the feeling of glass crunching beneath her feet as she clambered to get a new piece of junk, and the feeling of weight leaving her as she destroyed her darkness, piece by piece. All of that, and Anne.

Anne. She was at the centre of everything for Cathy. She was the driving force for Cathy’s happiness. Running around under the stars, air high with laughter and excited yelling, Cathy realised just how important Anne was to her. It was Anne who she thought of when her language teacher threw the word ‘happiness’ on the board and asked for connotations, Anne who was her waking thought and Anne who was her last text before she fell asleep. Anne was everything to her.

Anne was bringing out parts of Cathy that were meant to be secret, that she had locked away so she could focus on her schoolwork and studies, so she could be productive. Anne was the one showing her the light; showing her that it was okay to be both - to work hard and to play hard. Anne was the one who was showing her what it was like to be free, and Cathy was growing addicted to the feeling.

If Anne had not approached her that rainy, dreary morning, Cathy would not have been this happy. In fact, at that moment, she probably would have been home alone, head stuck in a textbook or six seasons deep into a TV show, but with nobody to talk about the characters with. It was curious to Cathy; she could never have predicted this. She didn’t even think that a person could have that much of an effect on somebody else. Yet here she was, enjoying life, living for the thrill, wrapped up in the feeling of being somewhere with someone, drunk on the highs of smashing garbage apart. Anne had spun Cathy’s life for the better.

Eventually, the good time had to come to an end. When the ground was strewn with the fragments of shattered junk, and there seemed to be nothing else that either of them could break apart, even with their brutest strength, they finally dropped their bats. Cathy looked down at her palms. They were red raw and sore from clutching onto the handle for so long, and yet she didn’t care. She felt on top of the world.

Anne walked over to Cathy and began wordlessly pulling her to a hole in the iron fence of the junkyard. Cathy didn’t question it, simply following Anne as she squeezed through the opening and out onto the other side. It was an uphill slope from there, but, feeling like she had the entire planet behind her, Cathy pulled herself up the steep climb with ease until she was at the top.

“Wow.” Cathy breathed when she looked over the edge.

The view from there was one she had never seen before. A few steps forward was a steep drop down, but, at the bottom of the drop, was the town. It looked peaceful at night, sitting under a blanket sky and crystal stars. She could barely distinguish the outlines of the buildings, just making out blocks of houses, the campuses of the different schools and her colleges, the small square of conveniences, the cinema they had just been in. It was all laid out in front of her, the tiny town sitting below the hill, tiny windows lit up for the tiny people that lived in the tiny houses.

For the first time, Cathy felt like the town she lived in was beautiful.

“Do you like it?” Anne asked, clambering up the hill to stand beside Cathy. “It’s where I sit to cool off, after smashing shit up.”

“It’s so pretty.”

“Yup. And no one ever comes up here. It feels like… I dunno, like my own personal space. Just for me. Does that sound stupid?”

“No. I think that’s cute.” Cathy turned her gaze away from the town and towards Anne. “But you took me here.”

“Well, I trust you enough to share this space with you too.”

Cathy’s heart practically melted in her chest.

Dropping down, Anne sat at the edge of the drop, dangling her feet over the ledge. She patted the empty space on the grass beside her, beckoning Cathy to do the same, which she did. The wind felt even louder up here, but Cathy was completely calm, despite sitting at the edge. Her eyes were locked up at the sky now, brain whirring to try and count all of the stars and all of the craters on the moon. She wanted to marvel at the sight in all of its beauty.

After a while of just sitting in silence, slowly catching their breaths, Anne spoke again.

“You know, even though our town looks really pretty from up here, I can’t wait for the day I can leave.”

“You’re going to leave?” Cathy tore her eyes away from the galaxy above and looked to Anne with concern.

“Not anytime soon.” Anne reassured. “But, one day, when I have the money, I want to. I will. It kind of sucks to live in a town like ours. It’s just… so empty. So average. So boring. I wanna go somewhere. London, Manchester, Brighton maybe. It doesn’t even need to be a big city. Just somewhere new. Somewhere different. Somewhere that I feel like I belong.”

“You don’t feel like you belong?” Cathy frowned.

“Come on. If, right now, some magical being approached you and said that you could live anywhere you want, free of cost, would you really turn around to it and say that you don’t want to move? That you belong here?”

Cathy thought about it for a moment.

“I guess you’re right.” She said, looking back down at their town. “Where do you think you belong though? There’s so much of the world to choose from.”

“Me? I dunno. It’s like you said. There’s so much. But I can imagine myself living in a city. I think I’d like it a lot, too. Bustling. Full of life. I’d be one of thousands but I’d still feel important. What about you?”

_ Any place with you also in it _ , Cathy thought.

“I’m not sure.” Cathy said. “Somewhere quiet but still full of life, like you said.”

“Ah. Sort of opposites then. But not really.”

Cathy just nodded.

They stayed at the top of the hill for a little while longer. Cathy fixed her gaze entirely on the sky or the town below, heart racing at the thought of turning around to look at Anne. Just imagining her wistful gaze, thinking about the moonlight twinkling in her curious eyes, that was enough. She didn’t think she would be able to contain the actual sight.

Eventually, after more comfortable silence, they both decided it was best to go home for the night. Anne walked Cathy back down the hill and through the streets of their town until they reached her doorstep, giving her a quiet goodnight so as not to disturb the neighbours.

Walking back into her flat and kicking off her shoes, Cathy made her way into the kitchen and instantly turned the kettle on. Her mind was whirring, picturing the image of Anne, thinking back on the things they had talked about. She was certain of one thing as she carried her cup of coffee to her bedroom and disregarded the stack of textbooks waiting for her on her desk.

Cathy wanted Anne to stay around forever. If she was going to leave one day, then Cathy was going to follow.


	4. Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: side effects of caffeine addiction, caffeine overdose, panic attack.

Growing up with her head buried in books and eyes glued to Netflix screens gave Cathy a very skewed perception of what was and wasn’t romance. Whilst she definitely wasn’t the type to become hooked on borderline creepy relationship dynamics simply because a hot new show had romanticised them, she definitely had a few misconceptions about the whole thing.

For starters, everything she had known had taught her that these things were quick. All of her favourite protagonists had gotten with their love interests within an hour of the movie, or at most three hundred pages of the book. And yet, for Cathy, time only seemed to get longer and longer, the more it took for no confession to happen on neither her nor Anne’s end. Maybe she was rushing into things. After all, it had only been a month or two since she first befriended Anne. Perhaps her feelings had come on way too quickly, and Anne didn’t reciprocate them at all. Cathy really hoped that wasn’t the case.

Then again, another thing that Cathy pondered to herself was what exactly the definition of love actually is. What makes her college crush on Anne more than just a silly crush? How far could she go before she was officially classed as in love? Was she already in love? Each of the questions and more swirled around her mind more often than ever before as she tried to calmly piece out her feelings. Unfortunately, unlike near enough everything else, there wasn’t a definition she could search for on Google and then memorise like the back of her hand; Cathy’s greatest strength could only go so far.

Regardless of whatever she felt for Anne, whether it was a temperamental crush or something much more permanent than that, there was one thing that Cathy did know. Her feelings for Anne were  _ strong.  _ So, even if she couldn’t tell the difference between love and casual attraction, she still wanted to act on it. There was a spark between her and Anne, Cathy could recognise that much. And she wanted to fan it out into a much bigger flame.

There was a third misconception that books, movies and TV shows had given Cathy about romance, and that was how people actually handled themselves around the person they were attracted to. Thus far in life, Cathy was honestly silently quite grateful for the fact that she had never had a crush before, because the media had taught her of the drastic consequences that come from that. Inability to speak in front of them, constant nervousness when they were around, other people catching on and teasing. It just seemed like an abundance of embarrassing struggles that Cathy never wanted to deal with.

Only now, when she had finally developed feelings for somebody, none of those extra added weights came with them. Admittedly, Cathy had been a little apprehensive when she first began coming to term with the fact that she  _ liked  _ Anne, and there were a few times where Anne looked a certain way or said something in a certain way that made her heart skip. But, for the most part, those feelings were undermined with ease.

Being with Anne carried no added burdens. It was still as natural, easy and fun as it had been the dozens of other times. There was still a safe space at Anne’s side for Cathy, and she still felt eternally comfortable in Anne’s presence. Nothing had changed from the night at the top of the hill; she still felt like she belonged with Anne - that Anne’s sheer being was enough to calm and quell her.

Cathy’s crush did nothing at all to hurt her relationship with Anne or taint the time she spent with her. Perhaps the only thing that was different was that she spent most of her time apart from Anne mindlessly dreaming about her, overanalysing things she said and wondering what could be if she just got her feelings off of her chest. But everything really was fine as far as Anne was concerned. Especially when it was compared to how Cathy was doing at college.

Suddenly, despite her pristine track record going from primary school until now, college and the expectations that came from it was finally starting to catch up to her. Nothing Cathy could think of explained why there was this sudden shift in attitude to her work; it was completely out of the blue, creeping up on her two weeks ago and lingering darkly around the back of her mind ever since. Everything just felt a lot harder, took a lot more effort, and Cathy didn’t dare let herself slip or take a break. She had too much of a reputation to uphold amongst not only her peers, but her teachers, too.

The abrupt stress of her college life almost seemed like a mockery. It was as if the universe was taunting her, making her pay back for things she had recently gotten up to. Although it wasn’t true, Cathy felt like her students and teachers had somehow caught onto the delinquent activities she had been getting up to with Anne. Stealing cans of energy drink from express stores and sneaking into cinema screenings without buying a ticket were certainly huge smudges on her clear record, and it was like her life was pumping out more uncertainty than usual to try and correct that.

Maybe she was just imagining things, but it felt as if all three of her classes had suddenly increased their workload, all at once. Time spent pouring over notes until the information stuck only got longer each day, and she found herself going through a ridiculous amount of notebooks as she scribbled down all the relevant things from her lessons. The increased workload was taking a toll on the other students in her class too, and of course their first response was to turn to Cathy for help navigating through it all. And who was she to turn them down?

That was just the tip of the iceberg though. On top of helping not only herself but her classmates, more responsibilities seemed to suddenly come hurtling her way. One night, as she opened her college email, she groaned to see the reminder that the Extended Project Qualification she had signed up for was beginning its program soon. As soon as she had read through the message, she was immediately cursing her past self for signing onto it. Back then, she saw it as a great opportunity to score some extra brownie points for her university application. Now, all she saw it as was another extra burden to carry.

University. That was another thing playing on her mind. Being in her second year of college, her teachers were urging her to start thinking about universities and potential courses she wanted to go on to do. Choosing where she wanted to study was a difficult enough decision on its own, but with all eyes on her, expecting her to aim high for some of the most prestigious institutions in the country, that just made it ten times worse. Cathy didn’t even know what career she wanted to pursue yet, nor what courses she wanted to take on - how was she supposed to decide which university she was going to be off to? How could she be sure that going onto university was even the right choice for her at all? Getting into university was hard enough as it was. She would have to pass all of her final exams and, whilst she had been performing well in class since she started college, who was to say she wouldn’t slip at the final hurdle?

It was all so overwhelming. All of these thoughts, concerns and worries swirled around her mind and whirred on in her brain all throughout the day and well into the night. Constantly they were churning over and over in her brain, left on the backburner but still ever present as she puzzled out what her next steps would be and how she was going to navigate onward. It was no easy decision; she found herself unsurely jumping from option to option, unable to solidly make a choice without being riddled with doubt about the decision.

One thing that Cathy was determined to keep consistent, however, was her status. The reputation that preceded her was all she had ever known in a school environment. If she wasn’t known as the girl who achieved big and behaved well, then who would she even be? Did she even have any other defining qualities? This was all she was, her reputation was everything she had. She couldn’t afford to let it go, or else she would let herself go in the process. Cathy wasn’t prepared for that.

So she made sure to keep on top of everything. Even as everything got progressively more tumultuous, even when her college bag was getting heavier with all of the papers she had to take with her and the stacks of the stuff on her desk were growing more by the day, Cathy persisted. She had to. Staying on top of everything and living life without fail was just who she was.

Besides, Anne made it manageable. Sure, most of Cathy’s time was either spent in college or doing college work, but the small windows of freedom that she got when she was with Anne remained. Her life might have become work, work and more work, but that was okay, because Anne made up the breaks. And Anne was good. Stuffing chocolate bars up her sleeve while only paying for one was good. Smashing up used junk, getting more and more violent with each time she returned to the junkyard, was good. Being with Anne was keeping Cathy sane; it was like having a part of herself that was constantly nurtured and protected from the stresses of the rest of her life. It was good.

Until the workload didn’t stop increasing. It didn’t stop. Cathy felt like she was drowning in a sea of essay papers, exam prep questions and countless expectations. Just as she managed to stick her head above the water, another wave came crashing down on her, this one even worse than the last. And, before she could swim to the surface again, her ankle was suddenly caught twisted in seaweed and she had to swim down to untie it, only for another wave to be added in the time that it took for her to do that. It was constant pressure, and staying afloat was getting harder and harder, but she had to. Cathy knew she had to. She had no choice.

Keeping afloat meant making sacrifices. First was saying goodbye to the calmness of her mornings, choosing to wake up even earlier than she already did just so she could pull out one of her textbooks and go over the things she needed to know in the dim light of her bedroom. Something she had learnt about Anne was that she was a late riser, so these mornings were always spent alone, but that was okay. The excuse to cram in one extra cup of coffee before the sun rose made up for it.

Then she had to give up her books and movies. Usually, before bed, whether she had just come in late after spending time with Anne or had just stuffed her revision folder away, Cathy finally let low by propping a book open on her lap or opening Netflix up to the series she was binging at the time. Not anymore, though. Time spent indulging in those things when she could have been going over something one more time was time wasted, as far as she was concerned. Besides, the fact that by the end of the college year all of this would be over and she would have more free time than she needed made up for it.

These little sacrifices definitely rocked Cathy’s boat, but she eventually reached her last straw and made one sacrifice too many; her time with Anne. Of course, she didn’t cut Anne out completely. She knew full well that Anne was the one person keeping her screws from coming loose during this time, and she wasn’t about to give that up. But she did have to start seeing Anne less and less, just so she could make sure everything was perfect.

Anne didn’t seem too offended by the reduction of time together. Especially because Cathy still put in the effort to see her at least once a week, and they had moved seats to sit next to one another in class, plus texted constantly outside of college. But not being with Anne seemed to have the reverse effect to what Cathy wanted. The only benefit that came from the decision was that she had increased time to concentrate on things, but even that was stunted simply by the fact that Anne was not there anymore.

As soon as Anne wasn’t as prominent as she used to be, the turbulent waves drowning Cathy spiralled into an unmanageable tsunami. Her health practically did a one eighty, and all the progress she had made in rediscovering the part of herself she had hidden away was undone in an instant. One thing about Cathy was that she was not a quitter, and this was usually one of her greatest strengths. Except from now, when it became her undoing.

In desperation to keep things running as smoothly as possible, Cathy didn’t bother to consider the consequences her actions would have on her psyche. She kept going, working through each paper, memorising each flash card, looking over each university. There was no stop for her. With each step forward she took, the ground disappeared behind her. All that was left was to keep propelling herself onward, hoping she didn’t trip on the ever growing cracks in the pavement.

But Cathy wasn’t stupid. She could feel the ground beneath her feet shaking, feel her world rocking and quaking around her, and she knew that if she didn’t do something to equal everything out then all of this would be for nothing. She would be destroyed, and her reputation would go to the grave with her. And so, in an effort to calm everything down, Cathy turned to the one thing in her life that remained unchanged; coffee.

First, she snuck in the extra cup of coffee in the morning as she went over her textbooks. That soon became two extra cups in the morning, plus asking for her usual coffee order at the convenience store to go into the large cup instead of the usual medium. Even with the larger cup, she seemed to throw the drink down even quicker than before, and she was grabbing a fresh cup for the start of each lesson. If the college’s Costa was a bar, Cathy would have been capped before she even walked in.

Coffee became a dependency; more so than it already was. It wasn’t there to just keep her energised and focused throughout the day anymore. It was there to keep her going through the day, period. Cathy felt like she might drop down dead without it. Her bank account emptied quicker each month as she spent even more on coffee each month, whether it was a takeaway cup or a tub of granules to take home for her own kettle.

But she still didn’t stop. Coffee was everything. No longer did she limit the amount of cups a day she was allowed, instead simply refilling her cup when she needed to. When it got too late, she used to force herself to drink water, or tea if she wanted something hot, so she didn’t disturb her sleep. Now, even night crept in, Cathy still kept going on the coffee, knowing full well it was going to stop her from getting even a wink of sleep.

She couldn’t stop. She didn’t only want the coffee, she needed the coffee. The bitter taste in her mouth and down her throat was all she had to keep her going. The buzz that hummed through her veins was everything. Cathy was addicted. And yet, she didn’t stop. She couldn’t, even if she wanted to. Not anymore. The withdrawal symptoms when she went even an hour without the beverage were almost unbearable, she couldn’t imagine anything more than that.

So, even when her head began to pound in a constant drilling migraine, Cathy didn’t stop. Even when her hands began to jitter and shake and she could barely manage to hold a pen in her hand, Cathy didn’t stop. Even when her heart seemed to constantly race and she found herself beginning to sleep less and less until she wasn’t sleeping at all, only lying awake all night in a pool of her own agitated sweat, Cathy didn’t stop.

Cathy couldn’t stop. Cathy needed the coffee. Cathy was addicted.

Cathy didn't want to stop. The withdrawal symptoms felt even worse than the actual effects of the caffeine. Cathy was addicted.

Her life was in shambles. There was work. So much work. Too much work. University applications were around the corner and there were too many options to pick between and she still had no idea if she even wanted to go. Exam period was hurtling towards her quicker than she could cram notes in. She had inadvertently pushed away her only friend, her saving grace, her Anne, and in her place an addiction had manifested and took the reins of control. And that was the nail in the coffin. One small incident, and Cathy’s dangerously tilting tower of life was going to come crashing down. It was not a matter of if anymore, but a matter of when.

It happened on a Thursday night.

Cathy was sitting at her desk, slouched over a page of notes and hoodie sticking to her with a thin layer of sweat, even though it was winter and it was freezing. Her brown eyes darted from the left of the page to the right as she made notes and checked them as she did, and her vision seemed to be askew by something that wasn’t even there. Around her pen, her fingers tightened, nail digging into the pad of her thumb as she strived to keep her shaking hands steady enough to finish her sentence.

One more page. One more page and then she could go to sleep. Or, at least try to. She would probably lay there and hope to get at least an hour in. It had been a few days since she slept. At least, she thought so. It was getting hard to keep track of everything.

Sitting next to her on the desk was her phone, and, when the screen lit up with a notification, Cathy startled a lot more than she should have. Instantly, she dropped the pen, eagerly grabbing the phone to see if it was Anne who had messaged. It was not. As she swiped the notification, her screen unlocked to show a message from one of the people in her language class, written in the class group chat. They were asking if the essay was due tomorrow. Two other people responded with yes.

What essay was due tomorrow? Cathy’s mind went blank and she mindlessly locked her phone back up again, dropping it back onto her desk with a dull thud. No deadlines came to mind, and her heart began to sink inside her chest. Leaning over, she grabbed her language folder from the shelving unit to her side and began flicking through it, balmy fingers slipping all over the plastic wallets as she looked through each piece of work she had put in there, trying to find the essay that was due tomorrow. She must have already written it a long time ago, only to forget about it until now.

There was nothing. Catht went through the folder front to back and back to front at least a million times before finally accepting to herself that whatever essay it was just wasn’t in there. She hadn’t done it. Was it important? Did it make up a part of her grade? How could it have slipped her mind? Desperation clawed at her to pick up her phone and start sending these questions to the class chat, but pride stopped her from doing so. The whole reason she had got herself in this deep was to salvage her reputation. She was supposed to know these things and answer them for others, not the other way around.

Cathy’s heart raced inside her chest, never slowing down. Unsure of what to do, she reached over to pull a blank piece of paper out from the back of her pile. Maybe, if she looked at the online classroom, she could find what the essay was calling for and quickly write it, ready for tomorrow. Perfect plan. Apart from the fact that, as she reached to grab the paper, her uncontrollable shaking arm brushed over the half drunk cup of coffee also sitting atop her desk with enough force to knock it clean over.

The drink spilt all over the desk, soaking everything in black, bitter smelling liquid. Cathy stood there and watched, her heart feeling like it stopped altogether as her mouth hung open in shock and unsuredness. Everything was on her desk. The notes she had just been writing were wet through with coffee. Stacks of paper she had completed and stacks of paper she had to go through were dripping with the stuff. Her textbook was ruined, ink smudged by the drink as it coursed through the pages and dampened them all. Her phone sat in a pool of it all, screen still lighting up as her classmates started talking about something else.

For a few seconds, Cathy just stood there, frozen in place as she simply watched the carnage of her work by the coffee. And then, the empty mug began to roll, and she did nothing to stop it as it did. It eventually reached the end of the desk, tipping over the edge and bumping on her chair on the way down, cracking a great chip from the ceramic as it made contact.

And, as the mug cracked, so did Cathy.

Her breaths suddenly became shallow and much more frequent, beginning to race with her heartbeat as to which could be quicker. Her eyes blurred with a sudden rush of overwhelmed tears, and she ran a clammy hand through her curls in distress, but it did nothing to soothe the rush of emotions that were pummelling her. As if being attacked head on, Cathy stumbled a few steps backward, only to trip back and fall onto her bed.

She did not have the strength to get back up. Even though she tried to, desperately pushing up from her hands to pull herself together, her weak arms said no, causing her to just fall back down. Her brain and body had different ideas. Cathy felt a rush of some pain indescribable seethe through her body, from head to toe, and suddenly she felt like she was convulsing. Her limbs seemed to have a mind of their own, hands balled into fists as she hugged herself. Wretched sobs racked her entire body, spilling from her mouth and echoing around the room, only scratching at her already pounding headache. In her throat, nausea seemed to push itself upwards, begging her to open her mouth and let all the bile escape, and she did, but nothing came.

Cathy’s entire body ached with agonising pain, her chest heavy as if something was crushing down on her. That on top of the constant rush of tears and choked sobs did nothing to help her, only giving her the feeling that she couldn’t breathe, and she began to inhale and exhale even quicker than before to combat that. Everything was out of her control. From her work, to her life, to her own body.

The episode lasted for what felt like forever, until finally everything seemed to numb down. Cathy eventually mustered control over all her limbs again, spare for the tiny jitters that circled over her, but they were nothing at all compared to the painful convulsions of earlier. Tears still streamed down her face, and she still choked out hoarse sobs, but they were getting easier to manage. The bile she felt from earlier finally shot itself up, and, on weak legs, Cathy was actually able to make it to the toilet in time, hunching over the seat and vomiting it all up. At least the heavy feeling of nausea was relieved, but it was only replaced by the stinging feeling of stomach acid in her throat and coating her gums and the roof of her mouth.

For a while, Cathy sat by the toilet, mindful that another urge of vomit might be coming and not wanting to risk the run from her bedroom to the bathroom for a second again. It had already been a close shave. Besides, the cold bathroom floor was refreshing against her sweat covered skin, and she basked in the cooling feeling it gave her.

Eventually, however, Cathy pulled herself up. Her legs were still shaky, and she clung onto the sink with her life, only letting go to lean over and flush the bile away. She slowly traipsed back to her bedroom, instantly collapsing back onto her bed as soon as she was close enough to it.

And she stayed there all night. Not once did she get up; not to get a glass of fresh water or change into her pyjamas. Not even to type a goodnight message to Anne. Cathy knew she had been worrying Anne lately, what with her increasing intake on coffee and the effects it was having physically, but she doubted Anne would care that much if she missed just one text. Everything would be fine.

Laying there, staring at the ceiling, Cathy felt herself grow heavy. She didn’t even know if she could move again after ten minutes of laying still, and she didn’t want to. Staying there forever, half covered by a mismatch of sweat dampened bedsheets was much more favourable than getting up and continuing with everything, because everything was too much. Cathy was overwhelmed and scared and confused and she knew that she would hate herself soon for choosing to slack off like this, but right now she really couldn’t bring herself to even move a finger. The only motion she made were the small, involuntary shivers of her entire body.

Cathy was mindless to all the time that passed by as she laid there. Even when her phone blared from the desk, signifying her wake up alarm, Cathy ignored it and waited for it to stop. She didn’t make an effort to stand up and get ready for college, she only laid there and watched the sun ascend into the sky through the crack in her blinds, listened to the birds begin their chirping song and the sounds of schoolchildren and commuters passing by the street outside.

There was no will inside of her anymore. No determination to do anything. She had been broken, had taken too many hits and was damaged beyond repair. All that was left was to lay here and waste away into nothingness, separate from all the pressures that getting up would bring to her.

By the time the sky was beginning to darken out again, Cathy felt her vision swimming and her eyelids growing heavy. Finally, some sleep. Tired eyes shutting closed, Cathy gladly welcomed the escape, even if it was just going to be for an hour. It was an hour she was grateful for.

“Cathy?”

Her eyes snapped open just as she felt like she was about to drift off. Was she imagining things? Had she really laid here so long that she was starting to hallucinate? Cathy didn’t even respond to her name being called, shrugging it off to her mind playing tricks on her as she let her eyes droop closed again.

“Cathy, where are-?”

Before the voice could finish its sentence, Cathy watched the door to her bedroom open from the corner of her eyes. And, although it was dark, she could recognise the outline and blurred features of that figure from a mile away. Anne.

“Oh my god, Cathy! I’ve been worried sick.” Anne quickly rushed forward to the bedside, widening her eyes as she took in the destitute look of her friend.

Cathy was crumpled over her mattress. She hadn’t moved a muscle since the night before, but her body was still coated in sweat and dry vomit was stuck to her lips and her eyes were wobbling in their own sockets as she tried to focus on Anne’s face.

“How did…” Cathy finally spoke, and her voice croaked like a sore canyon, filled with exhaustion. “Get in?”

“I’ve walked you home a million times, Cathy. I know where you keep a spare key by now.” Anne shook her head, as if she had just wasted time speaking on something unimportant. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Had a bad night.”

“Okay, okay. Um…” Anne looked around the room unsurely, as if brainstorming something to herself. It took a little while for her to speak again, but she eventually did. “Do you reckon if I support you that you can move?”

“Dunno.”

“Well, we’re gonna try, okay? And I mean it. If you can’t I’m gonna call an ambulance.”

“‘Kay.”

“And, if you can, I’m taking you back to my place.”

“‘Kay.”

“Okay. Just… wait here a sec.”

Anne got up from the bedside, but didn’t leave the room. Cathy watched from the corner of her eye as Anne stood up and shrugged her bag off of her shoulders. She then began to move around the room, picking things up from around the place; clothes from the wardrobe, essentials from the drawers, her book from her bedside table that was covered in dust from not picking it up so long, her laptop from under the bed and her phone from the desk. Anne put all of these items in her bag, and then left the room for only a few seconds, coming back with a pack of wipes that Cathy knew were from the bathroom.

Leaning back down next to the bed, Anne pulled out a bundle of the wipes from the pack and began scrubbing at Cathy’s lips, wiping away the mess that was there and then throwing the rubbish into the basket bin before dropping the pack into her bag for good measure. Her mouth opened and closed as she did all of this, but Anne didn’t say anything. It was as if questions were coming and going, but she ultimately decided not to ask any. Not right now.

“Okay.” Anne said as soon as she was done moving around. “I’m going to pull you up. You can lean on me all you want, let’s just make sure you can walk.”

Cathy nodded, and Anne slid her arm underneath Cathy’s small frame, pulling her into a sitting position and then onto her feet. She was slow in her movements, not at all rushing Cathy, which Cathy was in turn very grateful for. Her knees shook and she still felt limp all over but, with Anne as a totem of support, Cathy could manage a walk.

“Good.” Anne nodded. “Okay. Let’s go to my place. I have the key to get back here still, so don’t worry.”

Anne slowly began to walk from the bedroom, through the flat and out the front door, arms wrapped carefully around Cathy as she took her out. It was dark outside, the sky a charcoal black, and Cathy couldn’t tell if it was an unusually warm winter night or if she had broken out into so much of a sweat that the chilling breeze wasn’t affecting her. Or maybe it was the warmth of being this close to Anne, of feeling her body heat pressed against herself, and smelling the perfume straight off of her neck.

It was a slow journey back, and Cathy had closed her eyes with exhaustion halfway there. Anne persevered though, pulling her along without a complaint or even a word. Right now, she just wanted to make sure Cathy was in safe hands. Questions could be asked later.

By the time they made it back to Anne’s place, Cathy was out cold, having dozed off pressed against Anne’s side on the way. This only made Anne even more careful and gentle with her movements as she made it the rest of the way by herself, infinitely grateful for Cathy’s petite frame as she lifted her up and closed the front door behind herself as she stepped inside.

Anne was glad that Cathy had dozed off. For a while now, she had been worried about what was going on with Cathy, but this night had topped that all off. However, even though she was desperate to wake Cathy up and find out what was going on, she let that desire go. Cathy deserved a good night of rest.

Quietly, she carried Cathy through to the spare room and gently rested her down atop the clean, untouched mattress. As soon as Anne let go of her, Cathy curled up on her house, burrowing her head into the pillow. Anne just smiled, feeling her heart swell at the sight. She stayed and watched for a few minutes and for absolutely no reason at all until she finally pulled the blanket over Cathy and took a few steps back towards the door.

“Goodnight, love. Sleep well.” Anne whispered, and then she shut the bedroom door behind her.


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: implied child abuse, implied sexual abuse, discussions of caffeine addiction and caffeine overdose.

For the first time in forever, Cathy’s morning didn’t start with the sound of her alarm blaring from under her pillow, forcing her to wake up and turn it off. When she first woke up, she kept her eyes tightly shut, only curling up in the bedsheets to try and preserve the warmth and maybe get an extra few minutes of sleep before her alarm actually went off. A dull headache clung to the top of her head and her throat was dry with sleep, but Cathy was sure she was going to be fine, burrowing her head deeper into the pillow for comfort.

Tossing and turning but not opening her eyes, Cathy struggled to fall back asleep, but she wasn’t surprised by that in the slightest. In fact, she was actually shocked that she had even managed to fall asleep before this, and seemingly for a long time because she felt so well rested - the most rested she had felt for a while. Still, Cathy persevered, pulled in by the relieving feeling of actually getting some time out to sleep.

Only, before the sleep came, the smell of cooking hit her nostrils first. Instantly, Cathy was confused. She was home alone, so no one was using her kitchen, and there was no way she was smelling whatever the neighbours had on the stove. Tentatively, Cathy peeled her eyes open, batting them a few times to adjust to the sudden rush of light in her vision. That was when she realised she wasn’t at home at all.

Memories of the night before came flashing back and hitting Cathy square in the face all at once. At the back of her mind, a recount of everything that had happened played like a broken cassette tape; fuzzy and blurry, but she still got the picture. Her heart raced as she remembered everything from the text to spilling the coffee to the cracked mug and then all that followed from there. How she had collapsed onto her bed and couldn’t move a muscle apart from when she ran to be sick, but that didn’t matter because she didn’t want to move a muscle anyway. And then Anne had found her, dirty and dazed and barely responsive, and had carried her back here. She must have fallen asleep along the way.

A surge of embarrassment shot through Cathy the moment she remembered all of this, inwardly cursing herself for having let herself get like that - and, more importantly - having Anne walk in on her like that. She was going to be lucky if Anne didn’t kick her out the moment she showed her face outside of the bedroom door, wanting nothing else to do with her. However, what was heavier than the embarrassment was the guilt. The fact that Anne had taken her all this way gnawed away at Cathy, the burden eating her up from the inside out. She must have been dead worried if she had gone to these lengths, and all the while Cathy was just letting herself lay down and disconnect herself from the world.

Ashamed, Cathy forced herself to sit upright, as if it would do anything to repay her debt to Anne at all. It just wasn’t fair. Cathy felt like a fraud. Since they met, Anne was the one who was guiding Cathy along. Anne was the one who reintroduced Cathy to the concepts of carefreeness and jubilance and belonging, and Cathy had done nothing to repay her other than just give her another burden to carry. She felt like a terrible friend. No, a terrible person.

Sighing, she rubbed the lingering sleep from her eyes. Although she knew she had to leave the room soon, Cathy wanted to stay and procrastinate her exit for just a little longer. Besides, this was her first time at Anne’s place since they had met. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t at the very least a little curious as to what her place was like.

Looking around, Cathy noticed how bare the room she was in was. Albeit being quite small, the room felt spacious enough given the fact that the only pieces of furniture in the room were a bed and a chest of bedside drawers. Covering the blanket and pillowcase that she was still tangled up in was a baby pink duvet set, and sitting in the corner of the room was a small bundle of plush animals that looked like they had been discarded there rather than purposefully placed. Atop the windowsill was a dried up and wilted plant, and a closet in the wall was wide open to reveal a pair of stray jumpers in a baby pink that matched the bed set and a beige that matched the bland paint of the walls.

It was only when she actually looked out of the window that Cathy did a real double take though. The view was nothing extraordinary. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Rows of mismatched trailers were lined up, parked on the gravelly floor and only stopping when they got too close to a barbed wire fence. Cathy was in a trailer park. She was in a trailer. Anne lived in a trailer.

Somehow, it had taken her up until now to find this out. Cathy furrowed her eyebrows in confusion, trying to think back to conversations she had shared with Anne and wondering if she had ever mentioned it, but she couldn’t recall a single moment that it had come up. And Cathy had never asked; she had never even thought to ask. Especially because Anne didn’t like to bring it up and Cathy didn’t want to force her to speak about something she didn’t want to.

Continuing to stare out the window, Cathy tried to take in every detail of the park. Most of the trailers looked battered and run down, and there was little chance that Anne was an exception to this. Most of the blinds of the individual homes were shut so Cathy couldn’t see inside, and outside each door was a different thing. Some of the trailers had buckets collecting rainwater, others had thin wire washing lines and there were a few splintered garden chairs dotted around as well.

From looks alone, it didn’t look too much of a bad place to live. There had to be worse places than here. But, at the same time, it definitely wasn’t the best place to live either. Cathy suddenly felt extremely lucky to live in her ground floor flat, as well as had a new and pulling curiosity as to why and how Anne ended up here, of all places.

This curiosity was what finally drove Cathy to push the pink blanket off of herself and stand up fully from the bed. Slowly, almost catlike, she stretched her arms up, relieving all the resting tension in her muscles and clicking her once, twice and back into place. Having been laying down for over a day now, the strain evaporating from her limbs felt like an endless weight being lifted off of her. Not to mention she was eternally grateful for the fact that she could now stand up on her own two legs without feeling like she was going to collapse back down again.

Approaching the bedroom door, Cathy took a hold of the handle and stood there for a short while. She didn’t turn it and click open the door just yet, rather taking a few moments to prepare herself for facing Anne as soon as she did. Unfortunately, she had already pushed most of her time by looking around the room and the outside of the trailer, so she didn’t allow herself long before whispering a final word of encouragement to herself and opening up the door.

She was instantly greeted by another wall just a few steps ahead of her, and she poked her head out to look around. The bedroom door led out into a tiny passage, just big enough to fit one person going through at a time. On the right, further to the back of the trailer, were two doors, both closed, and Cathy assumed one of them had to be Anne’s own bedroom. On the left, the passage opened out into a wider area of space, containing a joint living room and kitchen. That was where Anne was. Having already shown herself, Cathy fully stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her, emerging from the passage and into the kitchen.

Standing over the stove, Anne was busy looking over the contents of a saucepan and hadn’t noticed Cathy’s entrance. She was clad in loose fitting tartan pyjama trousers and a white vest, her hair messily falling all around her instead of fixed up as it usually was. The streaks of mint in her hair were also askew, which Cathy found adorable, and she was tapping her foot impatiently against the floor as she watched the food cook.

“Good morning,” Cathy greeted quietly, and Anne seemed to startle only slightly. She quickly spun around to face Cathy, and her eyes seemed to swim with relief as she took in the sight of her standing up by herself. Her face was also now nude of makeup; lips pink instead of red but still looking just as soft and freckles that had faded with winter visible without a layer of foundation to cover them up.

“You’re awake.” Anne smiled, brushing some stray hair from her eyes. She didn’t seem angry at all. Maybe Cathy was overthinking things earlier.

“Yeah.”

“I was just making lunch. Well, lunch for me. Breakfast for you. Brunch?”

Cathy peered over Anne’s shoulder to notice eggs sizzling in the pan on the stove, and also noticed an empty packet of bacon tossed aside and ditched at the corner of the counter. Only then did Cathy realise how empty her stomach actually felt.

“Thanks.” She smiled gratefully. “Lunch for you? What time is it?”

“One o’clock.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, you slept for a long time.” Anne said. “But I’m glad you did. It looked like you needed it.”

“I feel a lot better, so I probably did.”

There was a small silence between them, the only noise being the sizzling of the eggs in the pan behind Anne, but she didn’t turn around and check them. Cathy opened her mouth to begin to speak up on and apologise for everything that had happened the day before, but different words fell out of her mouth instead.

“This is the first time I’ve been to your place.”

Anne just nodded, biting her lip and looking around, as if self conscious. 

“Unfortunately, not in the best of circumstances. But you can probably see why I’ve never taken you here before. It’s not a nice place.”

Cathy took a moment to follow Anne’s gaze around the place, looking into the lounge section of the room. There wasn’t much furniture in here either; just the sofa and a small worn dining table with chairs, but that was it. The place still felt clean and, given the abundance of blankets and cushions, cozy.

“There’s nothing wrong with it.” Cathy shrugged, turning back to Anne with nonchalance. The unsureness nestled in her usually glistening eyes plucked at Cathy’s heartstrings. It was a new look on Anne, and she wasn’t sure if she liked it.

“I guess. But it’s small.” Anne just seemed to be picking holes about her home at this point. “It’s lucky that we had my cousin’s room to spare, or else you would have had to sleep on the sofa. And that pull out bed sucks.”

“Oh. Did your cousin stay out somewhere else last night, then?”

“No. She’s not here anymore.”

Cathy’s heart stopped.

“Oh God, I’m  _ so  _ sorry-”

“Wait, wait, not like that!” Anne quickly shook her head, a small laugh escaping her lips. “She’s not dead. Promise. She just doesn’t live with me anymore.”

“Thank God.” Cathy sighed with relief, relaxing her posture even though she didn’t even notice she had tensed up. “I’m glad she’s not dead, then.”

“Me too. She’s my cousin.”

They stopped talking again, and Anne briefly turned around to check on the food. Even though they had dropped the subject, Cathy was a curious person who wanted to know everything in the world, and Anne was a beautiful mystery. As Anne turned back around, she raised an accusative eyebrow at Cathy.

“You wanna know why, don’t you?”

“What?” Cathy asked. “Um…”

“I can see it. You always get this little glint in your eye when you’re intrigued.”

“Well, um…” Cathy began, and then stopped. “You can see what I think through my eyes?”

“Uh, yeah.” It was Anne’s turn to stumble on her words. “Just from hanging around you a lot, I guess! Anyway, you want to know why.”

“I don’t mind.”

“It’s okay.” Anne reassured with a small, mindless laugh. “I, um, I trust you with it.”

“You do?” Cathy looked up in disbelief.

She had heard the rumours that followed Anne around since day one. There had been so much speculation about the things that had gone in her life, and that was one of the things that made Cathy want to get close to Anne in the first place. But then she forgot about those things altogether as she was overtaken by the joys and thrills that Anne provided, lost in the paradise that was hers only when Anne was around. And now, those mysteries were back. Only this time, with the key to unlock them handed to Cathy as well.

“Of course I do.” Anne nodded. “It’s, uh, kinda long, though.”

“I have time.”

So Anne began to speak.

“My dad has always had unrealistically high expectations of me and my siblings. That’s probably why my older sister moved out as soon as she got the chance, but that’s a whole other thing in itself.” Anne shook her head, already straying off topic. “So, when I was sixteen, he kind of snapped. He, uh, my mum found these magazines I had hidden in my pillow case and showed them to him, so he looked in my search history and found out that I’m not straight.”

Instantly, the story was off to a bad start. Cathy could already tell where it was heading, too.

“He kicked me out. I went to the council office, and they wanted to put me in the system. But I heard horror stories about the system already so I begged and cried and somehow got my dad’s signature to let me move out into my own place. Here. And it was hard at the start because suddenly I had to find out how to do things on my own, but I got the hang of it.”

“You were  _ sixteen _ .” Cathy was disgusted.

“He didn’t care.” Anne shrugged, continuing. “Anyway. Kat, my cousin, her parents were like mine, but her mum is dead instead of just being complicit in everything her dad does, but it’s the same thing. We were always close, pretty much since she was born, so she came over here a lot. And, um, she started… I started noticing bruises and cuts and scratches all over her, and she was wearing different clothing to cover them up, and she was starting to jump at loud noises and just looked really upset and, well, yeah. It kept getting worse and worse until… until… actually, no, that part isn’t my place to say. Sorry.”

Cathy just nodded with understanding. She didn’t even think she wanted to know what happened after that, anyway.

“You don’t have to keep talking about this if you don’t want to.” Cathy said.

“No, it’s fine. It’s, uh, the first time I’m telling anyone. It’s nice to get it off my chest, I guess.” Anne responded. “So, that was the last straw. Kat was staying with me more than her actual house anyway, so I just told her to move in with me and she did. I went over there and grabbed her essentials and her dad didn’t even put up that much of a fight before just letting me have her. But then I needed to start paying for us both, and that’s when it got really hard for me and I realised I needed more support, so I went to the council office again and asked for help.”

“It didn’t go well?”

“Nope.” Anne shook her head. “They found out everything, came over and saw how… well, how it’s not really the greatest living conditions. And they also got this specialist in to speak to Kat and found out everything that had happened with her, and decided that she needed special supervision. Some intervention support, because of everything she went through. So they put her in the system, hoping that someone more capable than me would pick her up.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, well, they also warned me that they didn’t think it was likely. Adopting parents tend to gravitate towards the kids who aren’t fucking  _ traumatised _ .” There was venom in Anne’s voice as she spoke, and then she suddenly softened. “But someone did come. This couple, their names are Jane and Lina. And they met her at the care home and basically fell in love with her and took her in and she lives with them today. Which is great, because they’re good people, but the thing is that they live on the other side of the country.”

“Didn’t they know about you too?”

“Oh, they do. They tried to adopt me too, but the authorities looked into their finances and they only had enough for one of us, so I begged them to take Kat, and they did. She’s still with them, and we still text, but I barely see her anymore unless it’s on a stupid phone screen. But I’m just glad the system lucked out for her and she’s finally settled in. I’m allowed to go visit her too, but train fare is expensive and Jane and Lina have too much of a packed schedule to come here. And, uh, I guess that’s it. It’s not much.”

“Anne.” Cathy spoke, blinking in surprise. “ _ Not much?  _ Don’t downgrade what you went through like that. I’m so sorry that happened to you.”

Taking a few steps forward, Cathy instinctively took a hold of Anne’s arm, resting her hand on the top of her forearm. She locked eyes with Anne, gazing at her sincerely.

“You shouldn’t have to have gone through that. Neither should Kat have. How old is she?”

“She’s in Year 11.”

“She’s  _ sixteen? _ ” Cathy was mortified.

“No, fifteen. She turns sixteen in August.”

That just made Cathy feel worse, and she couldn’t even imagine how Anne felt about it all.

“I’m really sorry. God, I don’t even know what to say. I’m always here for you, though, okay?”

“Really, Cathy, it’s fine. It was enough just to listen to it all. Thank you.”

“No problem.” Cathy said, although she was fairly certain that Anne was not fine about it, judging by her darting eyes and the way she was chewing at her own lip. Even so, she didn’t push her to speak on it further. She was already proud of her for just opening up about all of that. That was enough progress for the time being.

For a moment they stared at each other, neither of them sure when or if they should even move. Anne glanced down at Cathy’s hand still on her arm and then back at Cathy, and Cathy quickly turned beet red and relinquished her hold. Without a word Anne turned back around to the stove. She finally picked the saucepan off of the hob and kneeled down to the cabinet underneath the counter, plucking out two plates and setting them down on the surface. Carelessly, she chivvied the food out of the pan and then pushed Cathy’s plate across the counter towards her.

“Bon appetit. I hope you like your eggs fried.” Anne grinned, digging her hand into the cutlery drawer and siding a knife and fork across as well. Then, she turned around to the fridge and pulled it open, taking out a can of Monster from a neatly stacked group of the drinks.

“I do.” Cathy nodded happily, picking up the cutlery and digging in. “Don’t tell me you’re going to drink Monster with fry up.”

“I am.” Anne grinned, listening to the fizzling of the can as she opened it before taking a long sip and setting it back down again. “You can have some too. Or water. Or tea. I’d say coffee, but… I think we need to talk about that.”

“Yeah. Probably.” Cathy reluctantly nodded with her head, beginning to play with the food between her fork, pushing it around her plate. “Now?”

“If you want to.” Anne shrugged. “I was gonna wait ‘til you’re ready.”

“May as well get it over with.”

“Alright. Sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Okay.” Anne began. “Then… What happened last night? Because that shit was scary to walk in on, Cathy.”

“I know.” Cathy shook her head and sighed. “I know, and I’m sorry. It’s just like… everything hit me at once, I guess. College, university, and, I, uh, kind of just overloaded. I don’t know how to explain it. I couldn’t move or breathe properly and it was just horrible, and afterwards I needed to be sick and then I just wanted to lie down forever. So I did.”

“Sounds like you had a panic attack.” Anne said simply, and Cathy widened her eyes.

“What? No. I… I’ve never had a panic attack before.”

“Then what else was it?” Anne asked, her words interrogative but her tone patient. “Because the only other thing I can think of is a caffeine overdose.”

Neither of them were options that Cathy wanted to hear, but both of them were truths that she had to face.

“I don’t know.” Cathy mumbled. “Is it possible for that to happen at the same time?”

“Maybe.” Anne shrugged. “Maybe the overdose triggered the panic attack or the panic triggered the overdose, I dunno. But it’s not good either way.”

“No, not really.”

“Is there anything going on though? That, like, could have caused a panic attack to come on?”

Cathy looked dejected, unable to meet Anne’s eye as she asked the question. There was definitely something, and it was something she had been dealing with solo for too long now. But sharing it with someone else was crushing her reputation, and she didn’t want to do that.

“You can tell me anything, Cathy. I won’t judge you.”

Or did she? This was Anne she was talking to. Anne who had just opened up to her about her vulnerable past. Anne who had shown her what life was all about. Anne who was warm and loving and full of light and energy. Maybe Cathy was better off just telling her everything.

So she did.

“College.” She started straight away. “College is getting too much. It’s already bad enough because everyone expects me to get perfect grades in everything, and so they all come to me for help too, but there’s also the EPQ and university applications and our A-Levels are coming up soon too. And I can’t help but feel we’re getting so much more work than what we used to, and it’s all too much, and I can barely keep up. Actually, no, I can’t keep up, because a few nights ago I slipped. And that’s what brought all this on.”

Anne just nodded as she listened to Cathy’s rushed confession, her expression unchanging in the sincerity it was reflecting.

“Thanks for telling me.” Anne began. “But Cathy, you’re the hardest working, smartest person I know. If anyone deserves a break, it’s you. Besides, even if you’re not working at your best, you’d still probably come out top of everything.”

“But what if I don’t?” Cathy asked. “What if someone overtakes me? What if I lose my grades? They’re what define me, Anne. That’s what everyone knows me by. I can’t lose them. I’d be nobody.”

“Cathy.” Anne dropped her fork and reached her hand across the counter, grabbing one of Cathy’s. She began tracing soothing circles in Cathy’s palm, a small frown on your face. “Where did you ever get that idea?”

“It’s what everyone else thinks.”

“No they don’t. Definitely not me, anyway.”

Cathy just shrugged. Anne continued.

“You know, when I first spoke to you, it wasn’t because I was interested in leeching off your grades or anything. You might have been the only one also in class at the time, but I had always been interested in you. I always knew you were there, sitting at the back, and I wanted to talk to you personally. And then I found it fun to argue about which drink is better - it’s Monster, by the way - and then we just carried on. I’m telling you, Cathy. Your grades don’t define you.”

“Then what does?”

“Everything else. The way your favourite colour is blue and the fact you support small businesses. How excited you look when you talk about something you’re passionate about and that really curious and cute little shine you get in your eye when you’re intrigued. That you can carry, like, fifty books at a time from the library shelf to the table and the way you turn the pages when you read them. It’s your laugh, your smile, your voice that’s kinda quiet, but that’s okay because I’m used to it and can hear you by now. That’s what makes you, Cathy Parr. Not some stupid letter in red ink.”

“Anne…” Cathy was at a loss for words, staring across at her friend with a watery smile. She didn’t know how to speak after that, her heart feeling fuzzy in her chest.

“You don’t need to say anything. Just take the compliment. You deserve it.” Anne returned the smile, still not having let go of Cathy’s hand. Instead, she just tapped her fingers across the top of it.

“Thank you, though.” Cathy finally managed after about ten seconds of warm silence.

“No need to thank me for telling the truth.” Anne responded and, much to Cathy’s dismay, pulled herself back again, relinquishing her hand as she stood back up and carried her now empty plate to the sink. As she walked, she still spoke. “There’s one thing we still need to talk about, though.”

“Coffee?” Cathy guessed.

“Yeah.” Anne sighed, sitting back in the chair as soon as she was done. “I know I don’t need to go over why it’s bad for you. You were literally shaking because you were drinking so much, and it didn’t end up well.”   
  


“I know. I just… I used it to cope. I started depending on it.”

“That’s understandable. And I don’t judge you for it.” Anne nodded. “But we need to work together to try and reverse that habit, okay? I’m not saying cut coffee out forever, but it needs to get back down to what it was before all of this.”

“Yeah. No, definitely. I agree.” Cathy nodded. “It’ll just be hard work, I think. I already have a headache. Cravings.”

“I wish I had painkillers.” Anne frowned. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“Honestly, just spending the day with you will be enough. I’ve missed you so much.”

“I’ve missed you too.” Anne smiled, and the sight of it warmed Cathy’s heart right through.

It didn’t take long for them to slip into a normal conversation. Anne took Cathy’s empty plate and slipped that into the soapy water of the sink too before guiding Cathy back through the trailer passage and into one of the two closed doors that led to a bathroom and shower.

Alone, Cathy stepped under the jet of hot water, allowing herself to bask in it as she washed herself. As she stepped back out again, she instantly felt even more refreshed than before, soap suds draining away at the bottom of the shower while she wrapped herself up in a towel and walked back into the spare room. Kat’s room.

Anne had left the fresh clothes and everything else she had hastily packed the night before sitting on the bed, and Cathy smiled to herself at the sight. She really didn’t deserve someone as thoughtful as Anne, but here the universe had really put luck on her side.

Changing into something new, Cathy felt great. A dull ache still drummed at the top of her skull, but she did her best to ignore it. Besides, Anne was waiting for her in the living room. She walked out of Kat’s room and back through the package, instantly spotting Anne sitting on the floor in front of the sofa. An assortment of colourful boxes were stacked up in front of her, and Cathy raised a confused eyebrow.

“They’re boardgames.” Anne explained when Cathy reappeared. “I used to play them all the time with Kat, but since she left… I had no one to play them with anymore. Well, until now. If you want to.”

“I’d love to.”

“Great.” Anne grinned, grabbing the box off the top of the pile and emptying out the contents to set the game up. “But I’m warning you, Cathy. You’ll lose.”

“We’ll see about that.” Cathy responded cockily, sitting down opposite Anne and crossing her legs as she watched her set up the game.

They spent the rest of the day playing, laughing and getting lost in what they loved; each other.


	6. Six

Since waking up in the spare room of Anne’s trailer and then spending the whole day there, things had gotten slowly but considerably better for Cathy. She also felt a lot closer to Anne than she had been before, especially now that she knew more about Anne’s past. After being exposed to her deepest vulnerabilities, Cathy feared Anne was going to leave her or view her in a different light, but this just wasn’t the case, and Cathy was endlessly grateful for it.

With Anne’s help, Cathy sorted through her college folders and revision timetable, adjusting them to be a little more balanced with her own personal needs. She had also started cutting down on coffee, slowly shrinking down her cups a day to the amount that they were at before. The latter was the harder task to complete; oftentimes she struggled to stay awake, and, when she was, it was difficult for her to concentrate on anything for too long. Not to mention the constant pressing headaches and the unexplainable anxiety that came from the withdrawal too.

Luckily, Anne was patient and understanding. Consistently supporting Cathy, Anne was always there to try and uplift her and keep her on the right track. It worked. Whether it was gentle reassurance or a firm steering away from something that wasn’t necessarily correct, Anne was right by Cathy’s side the whole time. And it did wonders for Cathy’s recovery.

Things were starting to look up for Cathy. Approaching her studies with a healthier outlook achieved what she had been trying to the whole time she had spent wasting away at her desk; her grades remained unchanged, still sitting comfortably at the top of her classes. Even with the benefits of maintaining her perfect grades, the fear of slipping up was becoming less and less of a prominent one for Cathy as she slowly learned that they don’t make or break her. Anne was always there to reiterate that message if it started to fleet away, too.

Another weight off of Cathy’s shoulders was the university applications. Even though she still remained undecided on whether or not she still even wanted to go into higher education, she decided it was best to play it safe and send a couple of applications out there. It definitely helped her sleep at night knowing that she was on the register for universities across the country and, if she changed her mind and wanted to pursue an apprenticeship, she could just deny any places she was offered.

So things were looking up for Cathy. College was less overbearing, she was slowly wading through the coffee slump and trekking up and out of it and university was an available option if she decided she wanted to go after it. Above all else though, Anne was always there for her. And she valued her time with Anne more than anything. With Anne, Cathy felt like she could do anything, and that seemed to be proven true by the way she had worked to turn herself around in the weeks following Anne’s intervention.

It was one of many nights spent at Anne’s trailer. Her home had become yet another one of the common places they ended up at now that Cathy actually knew where it was, and more often than not Cathy ended up crashing in Kat’s room instead of walking back to her flat at the end of the day. Such had just become the norm for them both.

Whilst Cathy sat on the small sofa, scrolling mindlessly through her phone, Anne stood in the kitchen. On her tiptoes, she leaned up and searched through the cupboards, although they were mostly empty considering she usually only had herself to feed. After skirting through each one, even checking the cutlery drawers just in case, she haplessly sighed and turned around to Cathy.

“So, we have four dinner options.” Anne announced, and Cathy quickly locked her phone and dropped it on the chair next to her to pay attention.

“What are they?”

“Option one is half a cup of noodles each.” Anne dramatically slammed a takeaway pack of instant noodles down onto the counter as she spoke. “Option two is we go out and try to borrow some food. Option three is we order something in. Option four is we  _ starve _ .”

Cathy frowned at the limited range. Of course, she didn’t expect anything too big; she was just a college student living by herself, it wasn’t like she had the expenses to go all out with her meals. But, on the other hand, Cathy had at the very least expected enough for Anne to get by with. Food pantries that were slightly spacious, perhaps, but not completely empty. Things that might not have been full of flavour, but still nourished her enough to live on. A singular cup of instant noodles did not encompass any of this.

“We can order something.” Cathy finally suggested. “I think Domino’s emailed me a discount code the other day. Or Uber. Let me check.”

“Okay.” Anne hastily nodded and then pulled her battered phone from her back pocket. “Let me just make sure I have enough money in my account.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll pay.” Cathy insisted.

“Wait, let me just see if I have enough.”

“Seriously, Anne, I will. It won’t be a lot, not with a discount.”

“Are you sure?” Anne looked up, brows furrowed with uncertainty.

“I’m sure. I have enough, and you’re already letting me stay here tonight.”

“Thanks.” Anne’s posture relaxed as she tucked her phone back away and walked away from the kitchen counter, instead throwing herself down on the sofa next to Cathy.

“It’s fine.” Cathy shrugged off the gratitude, opening up her email app and searching through her inbox for the discount she swore she had seen.

After finding the code, Cathy went to the app and quickly filled the basket with a little more than what they could possibly eat between themselves at once, but who cared? It was discounted. Triumphantly tapping in the deal numbers, the order was sent off and the two were left watching impatiently on the screen as the food was prepared.

“This is always the longest part.” Anne groaned.

Cathy hummed in agreement, but she had more important things in mind that she wanted to talk about. She just didn’t know how to approach the topic without being unnecessarily rude or invasive, pondering if she should even bring it up at all. And yet she cared about Anne, so she had to try.

“Hey, do you mind if I ask you a question?”

“Course not.” Anne reassured, and Cathy only felt guiltier. “What’s up?”

“Well, uh… how do you get by?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, uh, money wise. It’s just that it doesn’t look like you have a lot to eat. And…” Cathy’s cheeks heated up. “God, this sounds so rude. I’m sorry. I just care about you, and wanted to make sure you have enough to, well, live on.”

Anne’s eyebrows furrowed at Cathy’s nervous and slightly awkward ramble, only making Cathy fear that she had overstepped and Anne was going to be mad. Before she could open her mouth to apologise, however, Anne finally decided on her response.

“Nah, it’s fine. I’d do the same for you.” Anne said, and Cathy practically melted with relief. “I get money from the council and have a little job on the side. It’s just enough to scrape through.”

“You have a job?” Cathy raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you have a job. You’ve never mentioned one.”

“I don’t really talk about it much because it’s not really an official job. It’s a little one.” Anne began to fidget with her fingers in her lap, her green eyes starting to flicker away from making direct contact. “It’s off the books. Cash in hand.”

“Oh.” Cathy mouthed, though she was unsurprised. “I bet the no taxes is good then. Saves a lot of money.”

“Yeah.” Anne nodded in agreement. “It really helps.”

“What is it, anyway?”

Anne just went bright red, not answering. The vagueness of her lack of speech almost fell directly into Cathy’s curious prying. She sat there, perplexed at whatever the hell it was Anne did for a living. Cash in hand work? Did she work for a small business? Maybe that was why she only stole from the express stores of larger supermarket chains; she knew what it was like to lose a slice of valuable profit. For a second, she was tempted to prod further, but then decided against it. Clearly, Anne wasn’t enjoying the conversation.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

Cathy hoped her tone was reassuring, but judging by Anne’s reaction she wasn’t sure. Anne seemed to scrutinise Cathy, as if testing to see if she was being sincere. Eventually, she sighed and shook her head.

“No, it’s fine. I trust you. It’s just that it’d be my first time talking to someone else about it. And I don’t want you to see me in a different way.”

“Anne, I’d never judge you for it.” Cathy frowned, a little saddened by the fear. Already, her mind was swirling with ideas of what it could be, and why Anne was so hesitant to tell her.

“Yeah.” Anne seemed to think about it a little more and then nod and repeat herself. “Yeah. You’re right.”

“Okay…”

Cathy lingered off. A silence hung in the air for a few moments and then Anne suddenly swallowed, balled her fidgeting fingers to a stop and finally met Cathy’s eyes.

“Sex work.” Anne bluntly said, and then seemed to immediately regret it. “I mean, uh, well… yeah, I guess. Not anything big. I only do it because I need the money, and, uh, it pays. Like, I can buy food and pay stuff that my benefits don’t. And yeah. It’s not, um, it’s not anything bigger than that.”

“Okay. You don’t need to defend yourself to me.” Cathy cut through Anne’s ramble, shuffling slightly closer to her. “As long as it helps you get by, then it’s fine, right? And as long as you’re comfortable doing it because… well, yeah. You know. And it’s legal, so it’s fine.”

“Thanks.” Anne released a deep breath, beginning to twiddle with her thumbs again. A silence hung in the air after that, and Cathy was busy contemplating in her head whether it was awkward or necessary until Anne spoke again. “It does help me, yeah. And it’s legal. I researched before I did it.”

“Good.” Cathy nodded. “And you’re comfortable with it, right?”

“As comfortable as I can be.”

“So, yes or no?”

It felt a little too much like an interrogation, and Cathy struggled to swallow her guilt for asking such questions, feeling as if she was overstepping some sort of boundary. Yet, at the same time, she knew she would have choked on the same guilt if she didn’t make sure that Anne was comfortable in the job. Of course, she hated to let things she had heard about the industry blind her perception of what it was really like, but Cathy couldn’t help but feel a little apprehensive at the thought of Anne in that line of work. She was just recently eighteen, after all, and it was hard to ignore the stigma and taboo surrounding it.

“I mean, I only do it to get by if the money I get isn’t enough.”

“So you’re not.”

“I don’t know!” Anne sharply responded, her persistent fidgeting suddenly stopping again. Cathy wondered if she had gone too far and opened her mouth to apologise, but Anne carried on speaking. “I shouldn’t’ve told you about it, I knew you’d get worried or something. Sorry.”

“No.” Cathy quickly shook her head. “I’m sorry for that, I was being invasive. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I mean, I could be completely wrong, and I don’t want to make assumptions about anything, but it’s just… that industry seems rough. You know?”

“Yeah.” Anne nodded, calming significantly. “Yeah, I get it. Sorry for lashing out. I just… it’s not something I’m really that  _ proud  _ to say I do. And, um, your questions. I guess they just made me think more than I want to.”   
  


“Am I allowed to ask why?” Cathy’s tone was gentle and quiet, having eased off the persistent questioning in fear of riling up Anne again. It seemed to have worked.

“Well, it’s not like I  _ want  _ to work like this. Like, it’s my last resort thing. But I have to do it a lot because a lot of the time I don’t have enough money to live on, but I’m not entitled to claiming anything else. And, um, even though I don’t really like it, it’s not like it’s really bad for me. I mean, I can handle myself. It’s not damaging, not in the way you’re thinking. I just… it’s not my favourite thing to do. Think of it like a chore more than anything. Not harmful, just… I don’t want to.”

“Okay. But even if it’s not hurting you like… like  _ that _ , it’s still not a good line of work to be doing if you don’t want to be in it. You deserve stability without having to put yourself through uncomfortable experiences.”

“I know. But I have no choice.” Anne shrugged.

“Surely there’s something.” Cathy frowned. She moved a little closer to Anne, tentatively taking her hands before they could begin to fidget again. “Is nowhere in town hiring?”

“I’ve tried every place that has been, and at this point I just gave up.” Anne sighed, seeming to relax with Cathy’s hold. “See, every job application just loves to ask for your address. And writing in ‘one of the trailers on the poor side of town’ is a great way to get your application thrown out.”

“Why not lie about it?”

“Come on, Cathy. It’s a small town. Everyone has some sort of idea where everyone else lives and if they don’t they’ll find out sooner or later. Besides, I’m okay with shoplifting, but I’m pretty sure using someone else’s address on a resume is considered more serious than that.”

“Then come live with me.”

“What?”

Anne raised her eyebrows, not fully believing Cathy was serious about what she was saying despite her tone and expression telling otherwise.

“I mean, we’re always together anyway. What difference is you moving in going to make?”

“Like, you’ll have more to pay for with two people in the house.”

“But you’ll be able to get a job to help with that.”

“What about space? There’s only one bedroom, and that’s yours.”

“My sofa pulls out, and I don’t mind you using that to sleep on at night.”

“I dunno, Cathy. I just feel bad if you take me in like that.”

“Why? I offered.” Cathy countered, reassuringly squeezing Anne’s hands that still rested in her own. “Please, Anne. I mean it. It wouldn’t make me mad and if it would help you then I’m even more for it.”

Anne still looked hesitant, but Cathy’s puppy eyes were irresistible. Mustering the best downcast look she could, she didn’t break eye contact with Anne, and it worked. With a sigh, she cracked and nodded.

“Okay, fine. But you have to promise to just kick me out if it gets too much. And I’m paying rent and things.”

“Promise.” Cathy nodded. Inside, the rough feelings that the guilt from earlier had given her quickly melted away into alleviation. Excitement buzzed through her, and she couldn’t help but release an anticipatory squeal at the thought of Anne coming to move in with her. The sound only seemed to draw a light laugh from Anne’s own lips, which was even better.

“You’re excited.” She chuckled softly, and Cathy swore she could get lost forever in a loop of the sound.

“Aren’t you? We’re moving in together!”

“We are.” Inwardly, it seemed to take a few moments for the statement to dawn on Anne too but, soon enough, a smile big enough to match Cathy’s own crept onto her lips. “Oh my god, they were roommates!”

Cathy just playfully rolled her eyes, finally dropping Anne’s hands but only to jokingly punch her in the shoulder. Her hands felt a lot warmer letting go of Anne’s hands than they had been before she took hold of them, but that was an observation that she kept unvoiced.

“Oh, shush. And it’d be like housemates. Flatmates. I dunno.”

“Okay, smartarse.”

“Hey!”

They fell into excited chatter as they waited for the pizza to arrive, discussing everything that was going to come out of being flatmates. There were the obvious benefits, like constantly being with each other. Anne seemed to really like the idea of waking up in the same house, because it meant she could get at least an extra twenty minutes of sleep in the morning, and that apparently made all the difference. Even in their shared grandeur, they dipped a little bit into the practicality of things, discussing when it was best to move everything over– not that Anne had much to move– and how they would arrange it in Cathy’s flat to make sure it wasn’t too cramped.

Then there were the silent thoughts; ones that Cathy kept buried at the back of her mind, ready to excite over when she was alone. She looked forward to a reality where everyday was spent in Anne’s company. She thought about seeing Anne with her hair falling around her and the strands of mint wildly flying everywhere after she just woke up, and her heart beated with affection and elation. Already, Cathy was growing impatient to start the moving process, head consumed with the idea of cooking with Anne, watching TV shows with her, brushing their teeth together. Being domestic with Anne was something she never knew she needed but, now that it was coming a reality, it was clear that it was something Cathy had always wanted.

If only the time could come quicker. Meanwhile, all she could do was enjoy the moment, and that was it. Not long after their conversation, Anne, who was doubled over in laughter over something that Cathy had said, forced herself up to wait outside after receiving a notification that the delivery driver was nearby, and then returned back with her hands filled with pizza boxes. Folding open the lid, neither of them wasted any time in tearing slices off, and the rest of the night went by like any other they shared.

A few more days and nights passed after that one. In the midst of college, it was a little hard to determine everything that needed to be done for Anne to move in with her, but eventually, over a late night of coffee and Monster Energy, the pair of them were convinced they had worked it all out.

Thus came the moving process. Unlike what it would have been for anybody else, it took little effort to move everything over. Even though Cathy was grateful for the little exertion that was required, it still saddened her to know that all of Anne’s things could be carried over in one trip. Still, she tried not to let that thought get to her too much. Hopefully, from here on, a new beginning was going to be marked out for Anne.

And Anne definitely recognised that. There was an extra bounce in her step, growing more and more noticeable as the days got closer and closer to the eventual day she would be moving in with Cathy. It was endearing to see her grow happier by the day, watching as the exuberance radiated off of her like light from the sun and her eyes sparkled with contentment. For once, Anne felt like there might be something bright in her future.

On the day Anne moved in, they managed to get everything done pretty quickly. Given that everything she had brought with her was carried over in one box, it didn’t take much at all for everything to be sorted. Dusting out an old cupboard that Cathy never found a use for, Anne populated the rail inside with coathangers and a few accessories laying atop the rod. Her few material possessions, like books and movies, easily slid amongst Cathy’s own bookcase in the living room, and the framed photograph she had brought of her and her cousin found a perfect place sitting on the mantle. It felt like a home.

No, it was a home. Cathy didn’t know what had switched, but since Anne moved in, the place felt much more warm than it had before. Waking up to the knowledge that someone else was still asleep in the room next door and going to sleep at night long after Anne had drifted off was something so mundane, and yet eternally comforting. Seeing empty cups and glasses in the dishwasher that she hadn’t put there was new, but she liked it. Having an extra toothbrush in the bathroom and an extra bottle of shampoo on the shower rack was a tiny, irrelevant detail, but Cathy smiled when she saw it all the same. Maybe Anne’s moving in wasn’t only beneficial to just her.

Living with Anne seemed to make Cathy fall more and more in love with her by the minute. Hearing her yell of announcement whenever she walked through the door after shopping made Cathy’s heart swell. Watching Anne flick through the pages of a book on the sofa whilst Cathy pretended to be reading her own was a commonplace thing. Her life was made up of stolen glances and arguably missed chances, but it wasn’t like Cathy cared. Being in love with Anne was enough. Consistently drunk off the highs of her affection was all that Cathy needed. She didn’t want to become sober again. She was scared to. So she definitely wouldn’t tell Anne, else risk ruining the blissful paradise she lived in. It was a sacrifice too costly.

There were times where it was tough to hold it all in, though. Sometimes, every bone, every cell, every fibre of Cathy’s being begged and screamed at her to act on her feelings. There were impulses and times where Cathy just wanted to spill everything off of her chest from start to finish, tell Anne all about how she made her feel and then some. Having not given into these compulsions was something Cathy didn’t know whether or not she prided herself on, but she definitely took the time to privately congratulate herself on her willpower.

Hats off to herself. That’s what Cathy thought. How she kept it all in was a mystery. Especially when they cooked together, and Anne would make jokes about how this was something an old married couple would do. Other times, they would clear the coffee table to study together, only for their hands to accidentally brush up against each other for a little too long, but every time felt like the first.

Then there were the moments that Cathy wasn’t sure she was supposed to know about or not. Times when the flat was encapsulated in darkness, and they had both long since retired to their beds. Cathy thought Anne was asleep at these hours, and usually she was, but there were few occasions when she wasn’t. And those brought windows of conversation that Cathy felt almost guilty overhearing, but the joyride they gave her heart was enough to compensate for that feeling.

“Hi.” Anne’s voice was low when she spoke, but in the dead silence of the night Cathy could just about make out what she was saying, even when she was in the other room.

And then the other person would speak, and Cathy couldn’t hear them, because they were on the phone. But she knew exactly who it was; Kat. Anne’s cousin. If calling her by name (or the incredible amount of nicknames that had been overheard, Cathy was surprised one person could have that many) wasn’t enough, the gentleness of Anne’s voice was the giveaway. She seemed to soften up, in a different way she did when she was alone around Cathy. Her soft tone wasn’t smooth, nor was it dripping in honey like Cathy was used to hearing in Anne’s more tender moments. Rather, it was softer. Like, if you could reach out and touch it, you would be greeted with a fuzzy warmth and docile tingling on your fingertips. Cathy found that adorable.

The conversations between the two cousins ranged from everything to anything. But there was one recurring one, and it made Cathy’s heart jump every time it came up. The topic? Herself.

“Yeah. I’m living with someone else now. She let me move in with her.”

The first time Cathy had overheard herself being brought up, she was busy typing away at a draft on her laptop. She hadn’t even known Anne was awake, and hadn’t even been paying attention to what she was talking about until she heard herself. By then, it was too late to tune the conversation back out. Temptation had drawn her in.

“Her name’s Cathy. Yeah, she’s really nice. And smart. But that’s just like… that’s what she’s like when you meet her. Underneath it all she’s funny, caring, considerate… one of the best people I’ve known.”

Cathy’s heart warmed with the compliments, wishing she could return them but then she would have to admit that she was listening.

“What? Ugh, you always ask this. Yeah, she’s pretty too. She has brown eyes, and her hair is curly and it’s really cute. And sometimes she hides behind the curls like a curtain and I swear, Kat, she’s just… you know what? I’ll see if I can find a picture to send to you.”

That made Cathy’s heart skip a beat entirely. Anne calling  _ her  _ pretty? The same Anne with the emerald eyes and perfect lips and sleek hair powdered minty? That was receiving a compliment from Aphrodite.

After that one time, it became hard not to listen whenever Anne got on the phone to her cousin. Why they decided to call so late, Cathy had no idea, but it didn’t affect her at all. She was hardly losing sleep when she was a night owl already, and listening to what Anne had to say about her or things they had done together was a thrill she looked forward to every time she heard Anne’s hushed voice come from the living room. It had become a guilty pleasure for Cathy.

Apparently, people around them were also starting to catch on. Of course, everyone knew they were close by the way they had moved to be with each other in their shared classes, and how they always disappeared to some place around campus between lessons, spending time together over Monster cans and coffee cups. But somehow, somebody had also noticed that they now lived in the same flat, and that spread amongst the college like wildfire. So, when Cathy was approached by a girl who she had overheard spreading the gossip of Anne’s past before she even knew who Anne was, she really shouldn’t have been surprised. Especially not when  _ that  _ question came from her lips.

“So, do you know what, like, actually happened with Anne? Not that it’s our business or anything, but…”

In the past, even just months ago, Cathy would have likely spilled. Before she met Anne, all she wanted to do was to fit in. To be somebody besides the girl brimming with essay tips and academic knowledge, and if that took indulging one of the gossips’ mouths, then so be it.

But not anymore. Not when she had her own place being with Anne. She definitely wasn’t going to sell that out for a few brownie points amongst her peers. And, luckily, befriending Anne had taught her just what she needed for times like these.

Confidence.

Self respect.

The ability to say no.

“I do know what happened.” Cathy said, and the girl’s eyes lit up. Not for long. “But what makes you think I’m going to ruin her privacy like that? What kind of friend do you think I am?”

“What?”

“You heard me.” Her tone was surprisingly calm. “I’m not going to feed into your rumours, and Anne isn’t suddenly going to let loose what happened after years of keeping it to herself. So, do us all a favour, stop wasting everyone’s time, and stop asking.”

The girl looked stunned. She just shook her head and walked away, mumbling something under her breath. Before, Cathy would have been apologising immediately for having been so brash, so rude. Hell, she would have stopped herself before it even came out. But now? All she felt was pride.

Everything was starting to surmise. Spending a lot of time with Anne was one thing, living with her was the next step. It was as if all the lost attributes that Anne had found hidden inside of Cathy were not only resurfaced, but this time they were solid. They were there to stay.

All the good things Anne brought felt like they were there to stay. Life just felt better with her in it. Cathy hated to even think about how it was before Anne was there, and often pondered to herself how she even managed to get that far on her own. Anne was a saving grace, a gift that fell from the sky and into her lap, and she was going to be forever grateful for her presence.

The underlying happiness that made even a bad day worth living through was everything. The way Cathy’s heart fluttered whenever Anne did something exceptionally cute was everything. The manner in which she thought and presented herself, with more esteem and dignity, was everything. Anne was everything. And Cathy was becoming everything ever she wanted to be.

Each day, against all odds, the pure, unfiltered joy only seemed to grow and grow. And, each night, Cathy wondered when it would stop.  _ If  _ it would stop. Don’t get her wrong; she never, ever wanted the feeling to end. And yet, at the same time, it seemed impossible for her love for Anne to become more than what it already was. But it did. Even with the feeling of impossibility, that surely this love had to stop somewhere, it just carried on. Until, one day, the roots that had been planted the day Anne first spoke to her became impossible for Cathy to tame anymore.

It was a Friday night. Winter was at its harshest. Despite it not being too late, only seven, the sky was pitch black, not even the moon illuminating the streets outside and the only source of light being the dim streetlights dotted every few metres. Rain and wind hammered at the windows, creating a gentle patting ambience, but the curtains had been drawn shut, keeping the storm at bay.

Inside the flat, Anne lazed over the sofa whilst Cathy took the armchair by the window. A silence hung in the room between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Rather, they were both just invested in their individual activities; Anne scrolling through her phone and Cathy stealing glances at the pouring rain through the gap in the curtains, doing nothing in particular. And then Anne cut through the silence.

“I’m bored.”

Cathy almost startled as she turned her attention away from the water running down the window like someone was spraying a hose against the glass, Anne’s voice cutting through the silence unexpectedly. She looked across at the girl on the sofa, raising an eyebrow.

“What do you want to do?”

“I dunno.” Anne shrugged. “Can I play some music?”

“Sure.”

Since going halves on a Spotify family plan, Anne had been addicted to the app. She was insistent on getting her money’s worth from the monthly payments, and that meant music filled almost every void if she didn’t already have an earphone in. Connecting her phone to the dock speaker, Anne opened up the music app and tapped a random playlist, hitting shuffle.

Above the pounding weather outside, a smooth, rich tune filled the room. It was a light, relaxing tune, but Cathy still felt herself submerged underneath the thickness of the music, like it had cast a blanket of warmth over her. She was surprised that this type of thing was something that Anne just had lying around on a casual listening playlist.

“This is the perfect song to slow dance to.” Anne stated over the music as if it were a fact rather than an opinion.

“It actually is.” Cathy was inclined to agree the more she listened.

For a few moments, Anne stayed standing where she was next to the speaker, just watching the screen of her phone whilst Cathy watched her in turn. And then she turned herself around, took the small few steps towards the armchair Cathy was sitting in and extended her arm out for Cathy to take.

“Then shall we?”

Cathy’s heart leapt. She blinked twice.

“Dance?”

“What else?”

Cathy was not a dancer. Cathy had never danced with anyone in her life. Cathy refused to dance with people.

Cathy said yes.

Letting Anne grasp her hand and pull her up, Cathy melted into following her lead. She felt safe in Anne’s hold. Not only safe; but like that’s where she belonged. As if Anne’s hands had been made to hold her and every nook and crevice of Cathy’s body was moulded to fit against Anne’s palm. It felt perfect. It was perfect.

Her first steps were awkward as she desperately tried not to embarrass herself, and made sure to definitely not step on Anne’s feet, but within minutes it was easy. Cathy let Anne guide her around and, even in the cramped space of the small flat’s living room, confined by the four walls, two chairs and coffee table, she felt free. Alive.

Another sound enriched the music, and it wasn’t the rain outside. Light bouts of giggling escaped both of their lips, getting louder and louder as they simply enjoyed being with each other. As Cathy basked in Anne’s soft hands pulling her gently around the room. As Anne doefully watched Cathy’s youth return to her while she spun her underneath her arm. The moment was theirs. They were the only two people who existed, wrapped up in the warmth of each other, suspended in a bliss that only they could share.

And then the music started to slow down, the instruments beginning to get quieter and quieter as the song started bringing itself to an end. Simultaneously, Anne and Cathy started to get closer and closer. The jubilant twirling around the room had stopped entirely, reduced to a gentle sway in each other’s arms at the centre. Cathy’s body was pressed against Anne’s, and everything suddenly fell into place.

Feeling the beat of Anne’s heart against her own, the warm breath of her lips tickling her face, the warmth of her arms snaked around her; that was the tipping point. And Anne seemed to be on the same wavelength.

Standing on her toes to be more level, Cathy finally did what she had been craving to do since day one. Since before day one. She leant forward, closed her eyes, and met Anne’s lips in the middle.

She kissed Anne.

And it was magical.

Fireworks seemed to explode in her chest and all around her, excited sensations of tingling erupting all over her body. Anne tasted like sunshine, and Cathy felt like she was drinking honeydew from her lips, which only made her deepen the kiss further. Her desire kept her going, never wanting the moment to end, wanting to stay with her lips pressed against Anne’s forever, with her fingers starting to entangle themselves in the locked ends of her hair, forever on her tiptoes to make the moment last for an eternity.

But nothing lasts forever. Especially not the greatest things in the world.

After savouring the moment for as long as she humanly could, Cathy breathlessly pulled away from Anne. Panting, she licked her lips, as if Anne’s taste would linger on them in between their kiss, but it was nothing like the real thing.

“That was…” Cathy began, but her breath hitched in her throat as she gasped for more air, not ready to speak just yet. Instead, her eyes travelled up to Anne’s, hoping to read what she was feeling inside her emerald irises, desperately hoping that her own starstruck gaze was reflected back at her.

For a split second, it was. Anne was caught off guard, eyes dazed but cloudy with dreams. She too looked content, warm, at peace. Cathy was relieved.

But then it changed.

Anne’s eyebrows furrowed, and the contentedly stunned look in her eyes shrunk away. In its place, plain shock grew. Confusion sprouted, uncertainty blossomed, and doubt took over. Before Cathy could even say anything to try and cut through the treachery that had suddenly dawned, Anne pulled herself out of Cathy’s arms, shaking her head.

“I-I’m sorry.” She stammered, taking a few steps back and almost stumbling over the armchair.

“Anne?” Cathy’s heart sunk at the sudden change in reaction, the bliss from before vacuumed away. “No, it’s okay, you don’t have to be. I… I liked-”

“No.” Anne shook her head, steadying herself against the wall and then sidestepping around to pull her phone up from the speaker. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have- we shouldn’t have-”

“Shouldn’t have what? Kissed?” Cathy could already feel a lump forming in her throat.

“Yeah. This shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry. I… I let myself go. I’m sorry. I-”

There was a pause. Then Anne started towards the door.

“Anne!” Cathy started to walk after her, which only made Anne pick her pace up into a run. “Anne, please!”

“I’m sorry.” Anne finally turned around to address Cathy again as she got to the front door, and she opened it wide. Wind rushed into the flat, freezing everything it touched to the core. “I- uh- thank you for the hospitality. I-I’ll get going now. And, yeah. I’m sorry again. For… for it all, I guess.”

And then she stepped out of the flat and into the nighttime, door slamming closed behind her.

Cathy stood there in shock for a few moments, overwhelming emotions hitting her all in a swarm at once. Sadness, anger, confusion. It pummeled her like a storm, making it almost impossible to move, to do anything.

But this was Anne, for god’s sake. She had to do something. And so her legs sprung with will, sprinting towards the front door and throwing it right back open.

Standing on her doorstep, Cathy was belaboured with rain, but she didn’t let that divert her. She looked up and down the street, barely spotting Anne in the glow of one of the streetlamps; a figure frantically running from the scene.

“Anne!” Cathy called, running up her front garden and to the gate.

Anne must have heard her, because she picked up the pace.

“Please, Anne!”

Still, Anne was relentless.

“Stop running, for fuck’s sake, Anne!”

Cathy’s voice was growing hoarse with yelling. It was surprising she could even muster the strength, what with the lump in her throat making it difficult to even breathe. Tears began streaming down her face, but they were indistinguishable amongst the raindrops that pelted against her. Her neighbours were probably going to start peering from their windows soon, curious about the commotion, but she didn’t care.

“I’m in love with you!”

Maybe it was the rain pounding against the pavement that drowned her confession out. That’s what Cathy wanted to think. It was much more comforting believing that than considering the opportunity that Anne had actually heard her and still ran anyway.

Her confession was useless. It was like yelling into a silent void. Nobody heard it. She barely even heard herself over the gathering storm, so certainly nobody else did. Not the nosy neighbours. Not local cats and nightfoxes still prowling about after sundown. And definitely not Anne.

Anne was gone. She had already turned the street corner and left. There was no point in going after her. Not right now.

Carrying the pieces of her broken heart, Cathy slunk back inside the flat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in light of the events of this chapter, i’d like to make it clear that what is written here does not reflect my beliefs about the sex industry. sex work, when practiced safely and with consent, is a completely valid source of income. anne’s unwillingness to participate seen in this chapter should not stain the already (unfairly) tabooed industry, nor should it be perceived as my own beliefs about it. thank you <3


	7. Seven

Cathy trudged back into the flat, letting the door slam haplessly behind her with the wind. For a few minutes she stood in place, leaning against the wall and taking the time to steady her breathing through the tears. Small puddles were beginning to form at her feet as the rain from outside dripped from her hair, face and clothes, but she didn’t bother to strip down or go get a towel. Right now, she just needed time.

Closing her eyes, Cathy contemplated everything that had just happened. Having only gone down in the last five minutes, it felt like too much. Her heart ached as she relived the scene in her head over and over, but she couldn’t stop herself. Pouring salt into the wound just felt better than ignoring the hurt entirely. Even if Anne was gone, she still carried that lesson with her.

Peeling herself from the wall, Cathy looked over to where she had been standing. The magnolia paint had a darkened shadow where she had been leaning against, and she cursed under her breath as she considered the time, money and effort it would take to repaint over the ruined patch. Or maybe she could just leave it there forever, as a ghost of her heartbreak.

She walked back into the living room and sat back down on the armchair. The same armchair she had been sitting on before any of this had happened. Her eyes zoned onto the sofa, eyeing it and its emptiness up and down. Anne had been sitting there just minutes before. Now Cathy didn’t even know where she was. That thought made her want to start crying all over again, so Cathy tore her focus to a blank spot on the wall.

Temptation crept up on her to kick on her shoes, grab a coat and go looking around the town for Anne. It was a small place, after all, she can’t be far away. Not to mention the fact that Cathy already had a few places in mind for where Anne might have run off to. She almost stood back up and made for the front door again, but some form of rational thinking stopped her before she could.

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to go after Anne. At least, not at this very moment. There had to have been a reason she just upped and left, and maybe, even though it hurt her to think, Cathy was the last person she wanted to see right now. Besides, it wasn’t like Cathy was in a good state to talk right now. Every time she thought she had collected herself, the waterworks were back and a new wave of tears washed over her. The nighttime and the storm were definitely off putting too.

Anne also still had the keys to her old trailer, and they had left the old clothes, bedsheets and blankets in Kat’s room, so it wasn’t like she was going to have to sleep out in the cold, dark street. Perhaps she just needed the night to herself. When the next morning came, maybe her head would be cleared and she would be back, and they could both have a proper conversation. That small hope alleviated Cathy, even if just by a little bit.

However, even with the decision that she was going to stay in, there was still the option to text Anne. So Cathy did. Swiping her phone off of the coffee table, she instantly opened the messaging app, and the current thread was already her conversation with Anne. Typing messages proved to be more difficult than it should have been, what with her shaking hands and thumbs slippery with rainwater, but she managed to send a few texts over. They might have been riddled with typos, but the idea was readable;  _ please come back _ .

There was no response. Cathy spent a long time just sitting in place, staring at the screen, but nothing came. Not even the icon that indicated it had been delivered changed to show it had been read, and there was certainly no appearance of the typing bubble, either. Again, Cathy began to spiral into a worry, but she was able to recollect herself a second time.

If Anne was ignoring her, then fine. Cathy really shouldn’t have expected otherwise. But that didn’t mean that Anne could ignore her forever. They went to the same college after all, and were in two of the same classes. Hell, Anne’s clothes were still sitting in the spare cupboard, and she would have to come by and pick those up eventually. There was no way she was just going to disappear.

Repeating those thoughts to herself, Cathy eventually locked her phone screen and stood up again. This time, instead of rushing for the door, she walked through to her bedroom. Throwing her phone onto her bed, she shut her blinds and pulled off her uncomfortably damp clothes in favour of taking a shower. Underneath the jet of boiling water, Cathy felt the tension rush out of her muscles as the shower sprayed her like a hot spring. She relaxed, basking in the feeling of the warm water against her, so different to the cold rainwater outside.

Eventually, she had to force herself to flip the tap off and step out. Cathy wrapped herself up in a clean towel and walked back to her bedroom, and instantly she was interested in her phone again. No new notifications, just a blank and empty lockscreen. A blank and empty lockscreen that was a picture of Anne, candidly captured mid laughter. Cathy ached for that day back.

Sighing, she sent one more text. This time, it wasn’t asking for anything. It was just one word - ‘goodnight’. Because, even in the midst of uncertainty and fear about what was going to happen, it still felt wrong to go to bed without saying goodnight to her. Or, in this case, texting it. As soon as the message was delivered, Cathy didn’t wait around for a reply. She locked her phone, placed it face down on the dresser and then got herself into pyjamas.

For a while, she laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. Then she started to toss and turn, but still found herself unable to sleep. Temptation to pick her phone up again began to build inside of her once more, but she swallowed it right back down. Then came the craving for coffee, and she was marginally close to pulling herself out of bed and brewing a cup, because the bitter taste and boiling scald down her throat really did feel like all she needed for comfort right now. But that would just be counterproductive. She needed sleep.

Instead, she found herself tiptoeing out of bed, even though there was no Anne in the other room to accidentally wake up; old habits just die hard. Cathy ended up approaching the spare cupboard and carefully pulling it open, as if it were the doorway of someplace sacred. Hanging up in there, exactly as they had been left, were Anne’s clothes, lined up and ready for her to take.

Cathy reached forward, her hand meeting the soft fabric, and began to flip through the array of shirts, trousers and jackets. She only stopped when her fingers met the unmistakable material of one of Anne’s flannels, and she pulled the jacket off of the hanger and closed the cupboard door back behind her.

It was tattered in her hands from how much Anne had worn it. Tufts of loose thread broke from one of the sleeves and some of the pocket buttons had fallen off in the wash, but that was the most extreme of the damage. It was wearable. And it was comforting. Bringing it to her nose, Cathy smelt the cherry detergent embedded into the fabric from the last time it was cleaned, as well as the dusty closet aroma from where it had been hanging in there for a while now. Above those two scents, though, the smell of Anne lingered most in the thread, and Cathy hugged the dark green flannel even closer.

Holding what she needed, Cathy eventually brought the shirt away from her face and swung it around her shoulder. She shrugged it over her pyjama top, fastened a few of the buttons so it stayed steadily around her, and then padded back to her bed. Wrapped up in the feeling of Anne even without her actually being there was a start, and Cathy found herself falling asleep like a light flickering out.

Her dreams were empty, thankfully. For nine hours, she was separated from the worries of real life, free to pretend that what had happened never did. As far as she cared, it didn’t. But then the morning came, and with it came the burden of remembering the night before. Sun peeked through the gap in her blinds, forcing her uncomfortably awake. Around her, the flannel still stuck, and the moment she registered it was the moment she scrambled up and grabbed for her phone, which still laid face down on the dresser.

This time there were a few notifications; an assignment uploaded to the Google classroom, an email from Costa coffee, an alert that one of her favourite content creators had posted. But there was nothing from Anne. Cathy sighed, releasing a breath she didn’t know she was holding, and dropped her phone back down. Truthfully, she had no idea why she had hoped for Anne to respond. She wasn’t responding last night, and there was a good chance she was still asleep.

Part of Cathy begged to collapse back into the bed and get some more sleep, but an even bigger part knew that she wasn’t going to be able to do that. It was difficult enough last night. Hoisting herself up, Cathy walked to her wardrobe and pulled out a shirt and trousers before reluctantly unbuttoning Anne’s flannel and shrugging it off herself. Once changed, she didn’t throw it to be washed, instead folding it up and placing it onto her bed again. She had a feeling she would want it again that night. If things weren’t resolved already.

With it being Saturday, Cathy was slower in going about her morning routine. She brewed her coffee and let it cool for a little longer before drinking it, mainly distracted by her phone screen as she waited for some alert from Anne. There was nothing. In all the time it took for her to get dressed, make her first drink of the day and settle onto the armchair by the window, Anne hadn’t responded. Swallowing her anxieties, Cathy took a swig of her coffee, letting it burn down her throat before she opened the messaging app to type a good morning message. Maybe that would coax Anne into interacting with her.

And then she saw it. The delivered icon had changed over night, now displaying that Anne had seen the message. Cathy’s heart rate spiked as she read the timestamp displayed next to the icon; four in the morning. Anne had read her message at four in the morning but had not responded. Worry pitted at the bottom of her stomach, and she began to type some more messages. They were the same as the ones she had sent last night, only this time much clearer to read.

Anne did not respond. All day and all night, Cathy waited for a response but none came. She tried to busy herself with a mix of studying and Netflix, but it did little to dwindle her nerves. Up and down, Cathy moved from her bed, the kettle and occasionally the bathroom, constantly listening out for a knock on her door. No knock came.

But Anne had to come eventually. Her clothes were still here, after all. It was just a matter of time; a test on Cathy’s patience. So she went to bed early that night, wrapped up again in the green flannel, and had another dreamless, peaceful sleep. Only to wake up again to the exact same day.

Sunday was different. Anne still didn’t text, but Cathy’s nerves started sharpening up into something more; anger. How was Anne just going to ghost her for this long, after everything they had been through together? That just wasn’t fair. For a while, Cathy paced around her flat, trying to cool off, but nothing seemed to work. Aggravation still coursed through her, fury bubbling at the pit of her stomach and rising scarily higher with each passing hour, threatening to erupt like a volcano.

At six o’clock, she finally had had enough. Walking through the same loop of her flat was doing nothing to help, and seeing the damp rain shadow ruining the painted wall of the hallway was what made her snap. Not even thinking about the consequences of her actions, Cathy slipped on the closest pair of shoes, grabbed her coat and stormed through the door.

The sky was a grey slate, icy winter winds clawing at her chest, but it was no match for Cathy. Hot anger continued to boil inside her, doing more than her coat to keep the heat trapped inside as she sped walked through the town. In record time, she was at the entrance to the trailer park, and she stomped across the place, gravel crunching underneath her feet, right up to Anne’s door. She gave it three sharp, hurried knocks.

“Anne. Open up.” Cathy demanded, standing outside and tapping her foot impatiently. “You can’t just ignore me like this.”

She knocked a few more times, even shaking the door handle in case some miracle had left it unlocked, before taking a few steps back and inspecting the trailer. The lights inside were off, indicating that Anne was not home, but Cathy knew her well enough by now to know that she didn’t like to waste power. There was no real way of telling if Anne was inside or not, and Cathy was too short to peek in through the windows. Even if she was tall enough, the curtains were closed.

Still, Cathy didn’t give up. She knocked until her fist hurt, tried the handle until her fingers were raw and called through the door until her voice was hoarse. There was no reply; no sign of life, no sign of Anne. It took the slate sky turning canvas black dotted with starry freckles for Cathy to finally give up. Her mood had simmered down to a dull agitation as she walked back to her flat, the wind finally managing to seep through her coat and freeze her to the bone.

That night, she did not sleep with Anne’s flannel.

The next morning, Cathy woke up to the sound of her alarm piercing through the room. She tensed at the sound, quickly fishing around under her pillow for the phone and turning it off before forcing herself up. Before doing anything, she scrolled through the notifications she had received in the night, but there was still nothing from Anne. But of course, she had seen the messages. Cathy rolled her eyes.

Filing through her wardrobe for an outfit, she tried to think of something good to come from the day. Even though college was a bore, at least she shared two classes with Anne. Maybe then she could finally yell at her. And then resolve things. Maybe, after that, she could even start to date that idiot because, although she was mad at her, Cathy still loved Anne all the same.

Walking to college alone was something she used to do all the time, but doing it now felt wrong. All the same school kids, dog walkers and bikes passed her at all the same times and places, but it was still wrong. She was used to having Anne walking next to her, filling the silence with rambling about the dream she had had the night before, or something she had come up with in the shower. Now, there was only the sound of occasional cars and birdsong.

Stopping at the corner shop, Cathy picked up her usual coffee. She drank it on its own, which also felt weird because she was so used to downing it alongside a broken piece of stolen chocolate. But no. Not when Anne wasn’t there. Everything, even the mundane little details of her day that she barely spared a second thought for before, was different. And it all because Anne wasn’t there to share the moments anymore.

Finally, Cathy made it to the college. As she walked through the front entrance and approached the A-Level building, she kept her eyes peeled and scanning around at everyone else sitting around the campus so early, but none of them were Anne. Well, she always used to run in just before class started before. Maybe she just wasn’t in yet.

But, even when class started, Anne wasn’t there. And she didn’t turn up late, either. The seat next to Cathy remained empty, and Cathy was intent on not even turning around to look at it. She kept her eyes focused on the board in front of her, occasionally darting down to her notebook to write things down, but never to her side. There was nothing there, anyway.

Two more days passed like this. Cathy had to force herself awake and then walked to college, grabbing a coffee on the way and trying to ignore how lonely it felt. She arrived at class a little too early each time, but that was fine. What wasn’t fine was the fact that Anne was nowhere to be found. Cathy had even gone back to texting and knocking at the trailer door, worry starting to catch back up with the anger, but there was still no reply. Anne had completely vanished.

Cathy was beginning to worry if she would actually hear from or even see Anne again. What if it was a repeat of last time? What if she just disappeared and didn’t come back, a retelling of the story that followed her around? Such possibilities became one of Cathy’s greatest fears, and they began to catch up to her on the Thursday morning of the same week.

Sitting at her regular seat in the back, Cathy really did try to keep it together. With only a few minutes to go until the class started, other students had already started pouring in, so it was too late to grab her things and leave again, but that didn’t halt the desperation to do just that. She could barely focus on the board slides as the class finally started, nervously tapping her foot under the desk and staring at her blank page where she should have kept notes. Just as it seemed to be getting too much to handle, a voice filled the room.

“Sorry I’m late.”

It was empty and dull, as if the life had been seeped out of it. There was no personality, no expression, not even a sorry tone like the person had said. And yet, even in the blandness, Cathy recognised that voice from anywhere. Her head snapped up, and there she was; Anne.

Cathy sharply inhaled, almost choking on a gasp. Anne’s head twitched in her direction before she suddenly jerked it back forward, as if she was urging herself not to even spare a glance at Cathy. This disheartened Cathy, but she refused to let it get to her, instead straightening up and not taking her own eyes off of Anne. Unsurprisingly, she trudged towards her old seat at the front of the classroom instead of the seat next to Cathy, but that was fine. She could just catch her after class ended. There was no avoiding it now.

Except there was. Five minutes before they packed up, Anne stuck her hand up and asked to leave. An appointment, she had said. The teacher believed her, but Cathy knew otherwise. Her heart dropped as she watched Anne shovel her things back into her bag and leave the classroom, not even looking at Cathy once.

This routine continued. Throughout the Friday, the weekend, and the day following, Cathy could not get ahold of Anne at all. No matter how many texts she sent, how many times she knocked at the trailer door, and even with sharing two classes, Anne was elusive. It was like trying to catch smoke with her bare hands; even when she was certain she was going to do it, Anne still found a way to filter through uncaught.

Frustration built inside Cathy. Her broken heart still ached inside her chest, seemingly impossible to fit back together again. Definitely impossible to fit together again if Anne wasn’t even going to cooperate. Was this what Anne wanted? Did she pull her along this whole time only to make her suffer like this at the end? Cathy didn’t want to believe it, but she was beginning to struggle keeping hope.

But, if that was the case, then Anne had created her own undoing. Getting rid of Cathy wasn’t going to be easy, not anymore. Not after all that she had taught her. Reinstalling the risk taker in Cathy might have been a cause for celebration at the time for Anne, but now it was going to become something stacked against her. Reigniting the hope of a bright future was a mistake if Anne wanted to get away, but it was too late to reverse it. Anne had already brought forward everything Cathy had locked far away. And now it was Cathy’s time to utilise everything.

It was the second week of being ignored that Cathy finally acted out. She couldn’t bear it anymore. Having all her texts read but ignored, standing in the cold outside the trailer for hours, seeing Anne in class but never being able to speak to her before she darted off; it was too much. So she took matters into her own hands. Maybe a little extremely, but she had to do what was necessary.

Cathy stood in one of the many custodians’ closets of the college. It was cramped and small, barely enough free room to walk around with all the shelves stacked with cleaning supplies lining the walls, but it was enough. On the ceiling, the dim light basked the place in a yellowish glow, just making it possible to see around with, and the thick smell of chemicals hung in the air. What was most important, however, wasn’t what was inside. Rather, it was where the closet was.

Situated in one of the many hallways of the college, Cathy already knew barely anyone passed through this area. There were no classrooms down here, no printers, no nothing. It was only ever used by teachers and students when it was a good shortcut to a classroom, but other than that it remained deserted. One thing Cathy did know, however, was that Anne always used this hallway to get to her drama classroom. Which meant she was going to be passing by any minute now.

Cathy felt a lot like a creeper, sitting in the darkness of the closet and stealthily peering out, waiting for Anne like a predator would for its prey. She felt guilty, and almost decided to turn her back on the whole idea entirely, but something propelled her to keep going. This was a last resort, and she craved answers.

Hearing footsteps at the end of the hallway, Cathy didn’t even need to look out to see who it was. Taking a deep breath, she silently opened the door, knowing that in a matter of seconds Anne was going to be right there.

And she was. Without wasting a moment, Cathy leapt forward and grabbed Anne by the wrist, pulling her inside the closet and slamming the door behind her. Anne yelped as Cathy did so, eyes wide with fear as she twisted around to meet the face of her attacker. Even seeing that it was only Cathy didn’t seem to calm her down. Her pupils remained dilated and scared, and the guilt from before rushed Cathy for a second time.

Still, she didn’t let go of Anne’s wrist. Just a few minutes, that’s all she needed. Then she would be successful and, if she wasn’t she would finally give up her pursuit. In an effort to relax Anne, hating to see how petrified she looked, Cathy quickly jumped straight to the point.

“I promise I’ll leave you be after this.” Cathy started, and even let go of Anne’s wrist to prove it. “But please just listen to me before you turn your back on us.”

Cathy didn’t realise how much her heart had started to race until after she had finished speaking. It pounded in her ears, and she could hear the blood rushing around her body, filling the silence of the closet. Keeping her eyes on Anne, she expected her to push past her and leave again, especially when she just stared back with an unreadable expression.

But then she spoke.

“No, Cathy, why don’t  _ you  _ listen to  _ me _ ?” Anne asked. Her voice was venomous. “Have you not been reading the signs I’ve been giving? There’s a reason I’ve been ignoring your texts and calls and knocks on my door, you know, and it’s the same reason I ran away. I can’t- I don’t want this!”   
  


Cathy was taken aback. She felt tears begin to sting in her eyes. Everything she had been through with Anne, from the very first morning to the dance, felt like a fraud. But Anne had sounded so sincere, so serious, so emotional as her voice became more and more frantic. Surely she couldn’t be lying. She might have been a prankster, but her jokes were never this cruel. This was the truth.

“If you don’t want this,” Cathy began, “then why did you even speak to me in the first place? Why did you lead me on? Why did you flirt with me? Why did you kiss me back if-?”

But, before Cathy could finish, Anne was suddenly yelling.

“ _ I don’t know, okay?! _ ”

Floodgates had been forced open. As soon as she had finished, Anne had burst into tears. They racked her entire body, and she curled her fist around one of the shelves just to hold herself steady. Cathy stood paralysed in place, guilt seizing and freezing her. She had never seen Anne so upset, so out of control, so vulnerable. And she hated the sight; and even more so that she had been a part of it.

Anne had started blindly punching at one of the shelves, the supplies on top of it shaking violently and threatening to fall off with each blow, but the strikes only seemed to increase in strength and speed. Cathy feared that Anne was going to end up hurting herself if she continued, already picturing the nasty bruise that was going to make easy work on her fist with all the force she was hitting the shelf with. Her eyes were clenched closed, whether by choice or by the drastic outpour of tears, and she had begun shuffling her feet in place.

Cathy didn’t know what to do. She was planning on yelling at Anne, on interrogating her, on asking why everything had happened the way it did. Never did she once expect that Anne was going to crack like this. She didn’t even know that Anne had this type of emotion in her, but here she was. Broken. Inwardly, Cathy debated whether or not she should step forward and help Anne, or if she should give her space. Before she could make a choice, however, Anne had swallowed her tears and begun speaking again.

“I-It’s like… it’s like… everyone is going to leave. I’m destined to be alone. M-My mum stopped caring about me when I was three. My dad abused me ever since and kicked me out just because I like girls. My cousin was the only person I had left, and even she got dragged away by the fucking government.”

“Anne-”

“No one I’ve fucked for money stays! Even though they know why I’m doing it. They’ve all seen how shit my place is, they all know I only want the money, but they all come and go without another word. Nobody fucking cares. Nobody stays. So why will you? What makes you so different?”

“I’m-”

“No, Cathy! You’ll go to university, you’ll meet new friends. They’ll be proper friends. Friends with money and real jobs and lives that they have together, and you’ll fall in love with one of them. And I’ll be jealous of that person, but I’ll forever be happy for you because I know that I am not worthy of your love. Just… trust me, Cathy. You don’t want to get involved with someone like me. And if you do, the universe will take care of it.”

Like before, as soon as Anne was finished, she launched into a bout of tears. This one was arguably worse than before as she rooted herself in place, sounding like she was choking. This time, Cathy didn’t even need to question whether or not she should help. Without a second of decision making, she threw herself at Anne, wrapping her in the tightest hug she could muster.

All this time, Cathy had no idea that these doubts were going on. Anne was always silent in her struggles, but Cathy still felt like she should have caught on. After all, with all that she knew about her and her past, it only felt obvious now that this was how she felt. And Cathy felt horrible for being mad at her for this long.

Still, she didn’t let go. She wanted Anne to know that she was there for her. That, despite her worries, she would never leave. Cathy wanted nothing else in the world. She didn’t care that they were inside a dingy custodian closet with no space and the smell of bleach polluting the air, she didn’t care that Anne had been ignoring her for two long weeks now. She just wanted her to be okay. And if that meant standing here, holding her for all eternity, then Cathy was ready. She would do anything to make Anne feel better.

Surprisingly, Anne didn’t push Cathy away. Instead, she burrowed her head into Cathy’s shoulder, hiding her face and sobbing quietly in the crook of her neck. Cathy felt wet tears against her skin, but she didn’t care. She just stood there, never relaxing her grip, rubbing one of her hands up and down Anne’s back whilst she used the other to stroke through her hair. She had missed her so much.

Somehow, the two had slid down one of the empty spaces of the wall and onto the floor, now nested between the cramped space of two of the shelves. Anne was practically in Cathy’s lap, holding onto her, and Cathy struggled not to move so as not to disturb her. She just sat there, held Anne and sadly watched, patiently waiting for when her tears ran dry and hiccoughs had replaced her sobs.

When that time did come, Cathy spoke gently, her voice barely filling the silence.

“Can I tell you something?” Cathy asked, fiddling with a strand of mint green hair between her fingers.

In her arms, Anne did not pull herself up, but simply hummed. Cathy guessed that was approval.

“You might find this hard to believe, but I promise it’s true, okay?” Cathy dropped the piece of hair, going back to simply holding Anne close to her. Anne still didn’t look up. “I will never leave you. Ever. The only way you can get rid of me is if you ask me to go, and even then I’d be putting up a fight. I think these two weeks prove that enough, don’t they?”

Cathy’s heart soared as she heard the faintest sound of a laugh from Anne.

“And I really do mean that. I mean everything I said, both that night and right now. I do love you Anne. I’ve loved you for a long time. And I’m sorry that people have been and gone from your life so quickly, but that changes with me. You need to know that I will never leave, that is my promise to you.”

Finally, Anne began to shift, slowly pulling away from Cathy but not completely out of her arms. She looked small and delicate, green eyes still swimming with tears and face blotchy red as she at last looked up at Cathy. Cathy continued.

“Maybe I will go to uni. And maybe I will meet new people and new friends, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to cut you out. No matter what I do or who I meet, you will always be the one for me. You will always be the one I am most excited to talk to, the one I am most excited to talk to others about, the one I want to spend forever with. I belong with you, and you belong with me. Nothing will ever change the fact that we belong together.”

Anne opened and closed her mouth a few times, as if thousands of words were coming to her at once and she was struggling to pick what to say. Eventually, however, she broke out with a sentence so small that Cathy wouldn’t have heard her if they weren’t sitting in silence.

“You mean it?”

“Of course I mean it.”

And then Anne threw herself around Cathy again, hugging her even tighter than before. She repeatedly whispered the same two words - “thank you” - over and over again, seemingly never running out of breath. Cathy just shook her head, patting Anne on the back and shushing her, responding every time that Anne doesn’t need to thank her, but she still did.

For a long while, they stayed like that; Cathy holding Anne until she was ready to go. There were no words, just the occasional sounds of footsteps outside and the sniffling of Anne on Cathy’s shoulder, but no more words were needed. Cathy was relieved. She had Anne back. And Anne, for the first time in her life, felt safe.

Finally, Anne pulled away, stretching as she finally sat up on her own.

“Sorry. You probably missed your class.” She said.

“I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard you care about class.” Cathy laughed in disbelief, and Anne just rolled her eyes. “It’s fine, Anne. I’d rather be here with you than in my class. That goes for any day.”

Cheeks twinging light pink, Anne just shrugged but seemed to reluctantly accept this. Cathy thought it was adorable.

After a few more minutes of just sitting there, they eventually decided to stand up. Cathy stretched out as soon as she was on her own two feet, shaking the pins and needles that had seized her entire left leg after having sat still for so long. In the meantime, Anne picked up one of the cleaning bottles she had knocked off earlier and placed it back onto one of the shelves.

“I hope they don’t notice we’ve been in here.”

“I doubt it. All the stuff looks the same.”

“Cathy, these are janitors we’re talking about. They can probably  _ smell  _ the difference between Clorox and Domestos.”   
  


Cathy just rolled her eyes and laughed. That was her Anne back.

_ Her _ Anne. Saying it in her head made her heart race, but she didn’t bring the conversation to that yet. It could come later, probably on another day. Right now, she just wanted to take Anne home, order pizza, watch a shitty movie and point out all the mistakes. That felt great.

“How about we go back home?” Cathy suggested. “My place, I mean.”

“You’d let me back so quickly?”

“Of course I would, Anne. You’re the one who makes that place home.”

Anne just smiled. A real smile, and it was a heavenly sight that Cathy had missed so, so much. Thickly swallowing, Anne intertwined her fingers with Cathy’s and nodded.

“Okay.”

They walked out of the closet hand in hand. Cathy’s eyes took a minute to painfully adjust to the bright light of the hallway in comparison to the dim yellow glow of the closet, but that was insignificant.

She had Anne. Anne was holding her hand. They were walking back to the flat. New beginnings were coming for them both.

Nothing else mattered.


	8. Eight

“Are you ready?”

Upon hearing Anne’s voice, Cathy looked up from her phone. She was sitting on the sofa in their living room, scrolling through her social media feeds whilst her flatmate had been occupying the bathroom. Dopey smile on her face at the excitement she could hear even with Anne in the other room, Cathy nodded and called back.

“I’m waiting!”

At Cathy’s signal, Anne emerged from behind the bathroom door. There was a bright beam on her face, joy radiating off of her, and usually that was what Cathy focused on most when she was around Anne. This time, however, her eyes zoned in on Anne’s hair, taking in the two thick locks of green. They had been freshly dyed, the colour back to its blazing neon green that Cathy had first seen Anne with, replacing the faded mint that she had actually gotten to know Anne with.

Despite the dye being a home job as Anne kneeled over the bath and carefully washed the colour in by herself, it looked pretty well done. Salon worthy, Cathy would have argued. And Anne definitely seemed to be proud of her work, that fact was written all over her face.

“Ta da!” Anne grinned, pointing up at the new dye as if Cathy had not already taken it all in.

“It looks great.” Cathy complimented, standing up and meeting Anne halfway across the room. She grabbed at Anne’s hands as they got close enough, pulling her closer when their fingers intertwined and giving her a quick peck on the lips. “But, then again, you always look great. Mint, neon, or otherwise.”

“Coming from you.” Anne deflected with a giggle, capturing Cathy’s lips in a second kiss but making it even longer. The taste of laughter in Cathy’s mouth was like drinking from heaven’s waterfall.

As of winter last year, following the hour spent tucked away in the janitor’s closet and then another long conversation complete with lots of mutual reassurance, Cathy and Anne were officially together. A couple. Anne was Cathy’s girlfriend. Saying it in her head still gave Cathy butterflies, and they had been dating for quite a while already. Seven months, to be exact. It was summer now. And yet, even with over half a year together, Cathy was still finding new reasons to fall in love with Anne every single day.

Seven months. Two hundred and thirteen days. Infinite moments. As far as Cathy was concerned, life had been pure bliss from the day she and Anne had made it official. Of course, there were still the regular stresses that she couldn’t escape from so easily, like the rent, the bills and exams, but Anne just being there seemed to make them all worth powering through. Besides, with the fresh status of college graduate, all of Cathy’s academic worries had slid off of her shoulders for the time being. It was summer break. She had three empty months to do whatever she wanted. And that meant a lot more time to spend with Anne.

Being with Anne was everything Cathy had dreamt it was going to be, and then some. The seasons may have been and gone, and the months might have changed, but her love for Anne only got stronger by the day. Everything was perfect. She still had Anne’s witty comments and deep insights, still got to listen to her anecdotes and appreciate her hidden intellect, but she also got the added benefits of kisses and cuddles and whispers of sweet nothing in between it all. There was nothing better.

Travelling her hands up to grab ahold of Anne’s wrists, Cathy pulled her towards the sofa and back down to where she had been sitting previously. She loved moments like these; where they would sit back, tangled up in one another another, hidden away from the rest of the world. It was like they were the only two people who existed. Combing her fingers across the top of Anne’s head, through Anne’s hair and playing with the tufts of green, Cathy spoke again.

“Pretty good way of spending your first official paycheque, I think.”

The moment a new cafe opened up locally, Anne was straight in there with a job application. One interview later, she had been contacted with the offer of part time work as a waitress and had immediately accepted the opportunity. As soon as her first month’s salary hit the bank, she had splashed it on a few things straight away; celebratory snacks, Monster she actually paid for, and this bottle of hair dye.

“Yep.” As always, Anne popped the ‘p’. “And just in time for tomorrow, too.”

“You’re really excited.”

“Really, what gave it away?” Anne sarcastically asked before shaking her head and speaking in a softer tone. “No, but seriously, thanks for tomorrow.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Annie.” Cathy insisted for what must have been the thousandth time.

Although she had countlessly told Anne that it was fine and that she didn’t need thanks, Anne had made it her mission to give Cathy exactly that. After all, tomorrow was a big day for them both, and especially her. After months since the last visit, Anne was finally going to see her cousin again, and Cathy was going to meet the famous Kat and her family for the first time. It was Anne who had brought it up in conversation when she first started her job, and Cathy who had offered to go with her. So, after quickly sending a text to Kat’s guardians, Jane and Lina, they were straight on Cathy’s laptop, digitally purchasing two train tickets. And now those tickets were due to be leaving tomorrow.

“I still want to. And you can’t stop me.” Anne said in retaliation, shuffling down a little so her head was resting atop Cathy’s shoulder. “Let me appreciate you.”

“If you insist.” Cathy relented, automatically wrapping her arms around Anne.

They spent the rest of the night flicking through Netflix, Anne occasionally lifting her phone camera to her face to simply admire the new highlights on her hair, before they finally retired to sleep. With the bed in Cathy’s room being a single, she had started sleeping in the living room with Anne, helping to pull out the sofa bed every night. She slipped inside and underneath the covers, scooted to the middle until she was pressed against Anne, and fell calmly asleep to the sound of her girlfriend’s steady breathing and rhythmic heartbeat.

_ Her girlfriend. _ It still felt too good to be true.

When she woke up the next morning, it was to an empty bed and the sound of the kettle brewing in the kitchen. She furrowed her eyebrows, pulling the spare blanket closer to her to make up for the missing presence of Anne, and sat up a little. This never usually happened; Anne was always the earlier sleeper and the later riser. Still, Cathy waited patiently, and eventually, Anne reappeared from the kitchen.

“Shit, you’re awake.” Anne said as she noticed Cathy’s sitting position.

“Good morning to you too.” Cathy rolled her eyes.

“Hey, don’t make me pour this coffee away.” Anne threatened, holding up a steaming mug.

“Okay, okay. Sorry.”

“Good.”

With a grin, Anne walked back to the pull out bed, crouching down to set the hot coffee on the carpet for Cathy to take and then climbing back underneath the covers.

“I just woke up early because I’m excited, and then couldn’t get back to sleep.” Anne explained, turning around and propping herself up on an elbow. “So I decided to get out of bed and make you coffee for when you wake up.”

“It’s much appreciated.” Cathy carefully picked the mug up and off of the floor, risking taking a sip even though she knew it was freshly boiled from the kettle. It scalded her tongue as soon as her lips met the liquid, and she instantly put it back down again.

For a few hours they laid in bed together, simply killing time as they talked about nothing at all. Eventually, and much to Anne’s delight, it was finally time to haul themselves up from the warmth of the bed, fold it back into the sofa and get ready for the day. Rushing through the flat, Anne and Cathy were quick to prepare for the day ahead, and were soon enough out the door, night bags in tow and springs in their steps.

Arriving at the train station a little earlier than expected, Cathy stood and leant against one of the walls of the platform whilst Anne kicked around at the faded line of yellow paint on the ground. It was almost empty, which was unsurprising. Being in such a small town meant there were rarely any visitors, and most trains into the area were just people returning home from trips or external work or anything else of the like.

Just as Anne was beginning to get impatient, the green and yellow blur of the train finally sped along the tracks, eventually slowing to a stop in front of the platform. The mechanical doors slid open, and, when no one stepped out first, Cathy and Anne climbed aboard, quickly finding seats seeing as most of the carriages were near empty.

Thus came hours of sitting across from each other, watching all types of landscapes roll by the window. Back gardens, sheep farms, ever expanding forests - the scenery was constantly changing, and the two girls had their eyes glued to it for practically the whole journey. Every few minutes, the train would pull to a stop when it reached a new station, passengers filing in and out each time, but it was never a lot at once. After what felt like forever, the robotic voice over the loudspeaker was finally announcing the name of their destination.

Anne scrambled up, grabbing onto one of the bright yellow poles and pulling her bag off of the luggage rack, full of eager energy. Cathy followed suit at a much calmer pace, quickly latching onto Anne’s arm when her speediness made her almost trip right over herself.

“Thanks.” Anne breathed with relief as the train finally stopped, and the two walked off of the platform, joining the stream of other people weaving around one another.

It was busier here than what it was back at home, but it still wasn’t packed. There was enough room to comfortably move without bumping into anyone, even with their packed night bags in hand. Temptation piqued Cathy as they walked off of the platform and into the station plaza, quickly catching a whiff of coffee and eyes instantly following the scent until she found the café.

Anne already seemed to have caught on without her even having to point it out.

“I’ll call a cab while you go and get some.” She said, and Cathy beamed with gratitude.

Leaving her bag with Anne, Cathy was hasty to join the queue inside the store. As she waited for her turn at the counter, she sent glances back out the front window, eyeing Anne as she stood outside. Her phone was raised to her ear as she spoke to what was probably the local cab service, and her free hand held protectively onto the handles of both bags. It wasn’t like she was doing anything extraordinary, but Cathy couldn’t help but feel so lucky to be able to call Anne hers.

She smiled to herself as she turned back around and reached the front of the line, quickly making her order. In no time, the rumble of the coffee machine came to a stop and the barista was fixing a plastic takeaway lid to the top of her cup, sliding the drink across the counter to her as she pressed her debit card against the contactless reader to pay. Nodding at the employee in thanks, Cathy scooped up her cup and walked back outside, reuniting with Anne just as she put the phone down.

They stood by the curb, watching people pour in and out of the station whilst they waited for their cab. Anne was bouncing up and down with impatience, kicking at a crack in the pavement and drumming her fingers against the vinyl material of her luggage. Keeping her eyes peeled on cars that thrummed cars in case it was for them, Cathy popped the lid off of her coffee and began fanning her drink, trying to hasten the cooling process.

Finally, just as she was able to take a few swallows without scalding herself, a black cab rolled up in front of them. Quickly speaking to the driver and ensuring it was for them, Cathy slid into the backseat, Anne clambering in right behind and slamming the door when she was belted up. Taking quick sips of her drink, Cathy once again had her eyes on the window for most of the ride, watching as the town centre scenery lessened and lessened until they were turning into a housing district.

The cab came to a stop, Anne passing him a wad of notes for his service and insisting he kept the change. They climbed out and thanked the driver, watching the car as it disappeared around the street corner before looking back at each other. Anne looked like she was barely holding it together, continuously clasping and unclasping her hands.

“Door number six, right?” Cathy asked.

“Yup.” Anne nodded. “I’m pretty sure it’s this way.”

Never trust Anne with directions. It took a little navigation of the street signs and squinting at every door number, practically going in a full circle before they finally got to the door they were looking for. Kat’s house.

Suddenly, Cathy felt some nerves strike in. There had been so much she had heard about the girl and the two women who took her in, and they had all been good things. Anne had constantly praised the couple for their kindness, recounted a million times how grateful she was for them, and always slipped into conversation how sweet Kat was, so surely she had nothing to be worrying about. They were all nice people, she had been reassured that much. And yet Cathy couldn’t help but feel a little anxious as she followed Anne up the garden path and to the front door.

What if they decided they didn’t like her? What if they were only expecting Anne and told her to go back home? If this did happen, what if Anne decided to listen to them and ditch Cathy? Biting her lip, Cathy tried to shake the thoughts from her head. She was doing herself no favours, and she definitely didn’t want to dampen Anne’s good mood with her worries.

Barely a second passed when Anne rang the doorbell. In an instant, the door was thrown open and a blur of pink leapt out of the house; Kat. She threw herself at Anne, causing them both to stumble back a little, but Anne was quick to catch her. Arms wrapped around Kat in a hug, Anne broke apart a little bit and started excitedly speaking to her cousin, making Cathy able to see her face.

She might have been tall for her age, but her expression was young and innocent. Her eyes were big and brown, and the eclipse inside them looked like it had seen both fortune and tragedy. There were a few similarities to Anne; the hooked nose and brightly dyed hair, only Kat’s style was as if she had dipped her ponytail in pink. Other than that, they looked quite different. Before Cathy could keep noting down things in Kat’s appearance, however, the younger cousin unexpectedly turned around to her.

“Cathy?” She asked, a small smile playing on her face. Her energy was a lot more timid than how she had been with Anne, but Cathy understood that. She was going to be the same.

“Yup.” Anne nodded in confirmation of Kat’s question.

“Okay. Good.” Kat took a step closer and waved a hand up in greeting. “I’m Kat. Kit. Kitty-”

“Kitkat.” Anne added.

“I’m sure she can tell me her own name.” Cathy joked, and immediately relaxed a little when she actually earned a laugh from Kat. “I’m Cathy. Just Cathy.”

“What are you all doing still outside?” Another voice sounded, and the three girls standing in the garden looked up towards the house. A taller woman stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame and looking at them quizzically. She would have been intimidating if not for the warm, inviting smile that played her lips. “Come inside, Jane’s waiting. And she made lunch.”

That last comment quickly coaxed Anne and Kat into the house, and Cathy followed suit. As she carefully took her shoes off and neatly placed them by the door, as opposed to the way she recklessly kicked them off back at home, the unidentified woman turned around to speak to her as the cousins dashed off into the next room.

“I’m Lina.” She introduced herself. “You’re Cathy, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Cathy nodded with a small smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Anne’s told me a lot about you.”

“Oh, really? Likewise.”

Lina’s eyebrows raised. “I want to hear about that.”

“Only if you tell me what she said about me.” Cathy proposed.

“Deal.” Lina chuckled, before guiding Cathy down the hall and out into the front room.

Already sitting in there were the two cousins, as well as a final blonde woman who had to be Jane, by process of elimination. When Cathy walked in, towing Lina, Jane looked up and quickly approached. Somehow, she seemed even more inviting than Lina had been.

“Hi, Cathy.” She smiled, opening her arms in welcome. “I’m Jane.”

“It’s nice to meet you.” Cathy repeated what she had said earlier.

There. She had met all three of them now. And all three of them had been nice. Cathy felt the nerves slowly sliding off of her, smashing away into nothingness as they hit oblivion.

For a few hours, they sat around the living room, picking pieces off of the plates that Jane had laid out on the table until only crumbs remained. Anne linked her arm around Cathy as they spoke, taking the reins for a lot of the conversation, but Cathy never felt silenced.

They asked each other about practically everything, having a huge catch up whilst Cathy observed everyone, getting to know the three women she hadn’t already met yet. Lina, despite her intimidating stature, only seemed to expel kindness and patience. Plus, she was incredibly smitten with Jane, who sat by her side. Jane was exactly as she looked; warm, inviting and caring. A safe person to be around. And Kat was the definition of quick wit, wrapped up in purity.

Cathy could see friends in all three of them.

Jane was the one who was particularly interested in Anne and Cathy; everything ranging from how they met, when they started dating, and what their plans were for the future. She never asked things in a rude way, though, and both Anne and Cathy were happy to share.

“I’m going to the University of Brighton.” Cathy explained.

“Are you boarding there?” Jane asked, eyebrows raised.

“No.” Cathy shook her head, a small smile on her face as she thought about it. “Me and Anne found a flat in the area. We’re moving.”

“Really?” Kat’s eyes widened, and she sat up a little. “That’s like-”

“Pretty close to here.” Anne finished with an excited nod. “Yup. Kind of why we chose that area. I think I’m gonna do an apprenticeship, too. And there’s a lot of choices in the city.”

A series of congratulations and celebrations followed, and the two just waved them off. Some more hours passed of talking, Cathy completely forgetting that time was going by until the sound of the doorbell broke out over their conversation. As before, Kat was the one who stood up and rushed down the hall to answer it. She came back with another girl of her own age in tow, literally holding her by the hand to bring her along.

“Hi,” she said to the room, looking over everyone. Particularly, her gaze fell on Anne and Cathy.

“This is Anna.” Kat stated, looking up at her with starry eyes.

Anna turned out to be Kat’s girlfriend. An air of confidence followed Anna around, embedded in every action she made and every word she spoke. It wasn’t to be confused with arrogance, however. Within minutes of meeting her, Cathy knew that she too was somebody to get along with. Besides, the tough act didn’t go too far when every other minute she was looking at Kat with doting eyes.

Jane and Lina stood up and trailed into the kitchen, spending an hour in there preparing dinner whilst the other four continued to lounge around the front room. The sun was dipping low in the sky by the time they were called to eat, and they all sat around the table, cutting into the meal in front of them. Never did the buzzing happy atmosphere end, and Cathy found herself wondering why she was even scared to meet any of these people in the first place. They made her feel at home.

As day dragged into night, Anna eventually hugged Kat and waved the others goodbye, leaving the house once again and walking home. Cathy, insistent on being a good guest, stayed in the kitchen even after dinner was eaten. She stood at the sink, helping Jane and Lina scrub clean the dishes, cutlery and cooking utensils, despite their reassurances that it was fine.

When everything was washed up and placed neatly on the drying rack, Cathy stripped off the rubber gloves and walking through to the living room. On the sofa, Anne and Kat were huddled against each other. Clutched in Anne’s hands was a bright yellow Nintendo Switch, her brows furrowed and teeth chewing her bottom lip as she concentrated on the screen. Kat also watched with deep interest, occasionally mumbling tips as her cousin mashed the buttons.

Cathy smiled at the sight, and decided it was best not to disturb them. Instead, she found her own way to the back of the house, clicking open the back door and walking up the garden. She sat down on the warm grass, leaning back and watching the oily orange sky darken with the night. Birds chirruping around her started to quieten down, the humid air turning breezier by the minute. She let her hands dig into the soil, head tilting backwards as thought to herself in the peace of the nature surrounding her.

Images of everything leading up to this point spiralled around in mind. She thought about the rainy morning that Anne had first spoken to her. When she had come up to Cathy’s desk, dewy with the downpour but insistent that she was right and Cathy was wrong. And then they went to the store together, and that was when Cathy slipped into this love.

She had no regrets. Only excitement for the future.

“Hey.”

Cathy heard a voice behind her and turned around to see Anne standing there. She hadn’t realised so much time had passed as she got lost down memory lane, but quickly patted the space on the grass next to her.

“Hi. I thought you were inside with Kat.”

“I completed the level she was stuck on. And I wanted to see you. Plus, I come bearing gifts.” Anne sat down next to Cathy, passing over a steaming mug of coffee. In her other hand was a bright pink can of Monster, condensation sitting on the aluminum tin from being refrigerated.

“I’m really glad we’re here.” Anne said as she made herself comfortable, crossing her legs behind her. “I didn’t think… I dunno. I guess I’m just happy. Thank you for coming with me.”

“You don’t need to.” Cathy shook her head, looking across at Anne. Warmth filled her heart at the thoughtful expression on her face.

“But let me anyway. Seriously, Cathy, if I didn’t have you, I’d probably still be in my trailer, doing god knows what. You’ve been so patient with me. Let me thank you.”

“Fine.” Cathy accepted. “No problem. But it’s not like you make it difficult.”

“Hm. I guess.”

“Anyway, let me thank you now.”

“I’d normally say nope, but I guess this time is a yes because you just let me.”

“Good.” Cathy grinned, shuffling closer to Anne. “Thank you for being a part of my life. I don’t know what I’d do without you. You… you brought out parts of me that I forgot existed. I feel like I’m me again. And that’s because I’m with you. So… thank you. For even speaking to me in the first place, thank you.”

“Awwww.” Anne cooed, wrapping an arm around Cathy. “But don’t be surprised that I came up to you that morning.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s like you always say.”

Cathy looked confused, so Anne continued.

“We belong together. It was going to happen sooner or later. The universe would’ve made sure of it.”

“You’re right.” Cathy’s heart soared, a broad smile painting her face. “We were meant to be together.”

A small silence sounded, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. In the sky, the moon proudly watched over the scene, casting its beams down onto the garden. Anne watched in awe as the glistening shine fell onto Cathy, capturing her in all of her beauty.

“God. I love you so much.” Anne whispered.

“I love you more.” Cathy responded, taking one of Anne’s hands.

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.”

“Prove it then.”

And Cathy leant forward, pressing her lips against Anne’s under the spotlight of the full moon. One arm curled itself around Anne’s waist, pulling her closer, whilst the other arm snaked its hand into her hair, curling strands around her fingers. She never wanted this moment to end.

Anne held onto Cathy, both arms wrapped around her like she was never ever going to let go. She kissed back with passion, but keeping herself soft and gentle. Cathy wanted to stay like this forever.

In fact, she knew she was going to stay like this forever. Because, even if this specific moment was going to come to an end, Anne was always going to be there. There were going to be an infinite amount more kisses, more I love yous, more sweet embraces under the stars.

This love was forever. Anne was forever. Because, fatally, they belonged together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so it ends. i’ve written a little thank you here on my tumblr:
> 
> (https://boleynhowards.tumblr.com/post/636695156561723392/bye-bye-forever-with-you)
> 
> :)


End file.
